The Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor who hopes to distribute US$100 laptops to the world's children dismissed recent criticisms on Tuesday and said his project could begin distributing the computers by early next year.
Kicking off the LinuxWorld conference in Boston, Nicholas Negroponte said he was undeterred by skepticism from two of the leading forces in computing, Intel Corp and Microsoft Corp.
"When you have both Intel and Microsoft on your case, you know you're doing something right," Negroponte said, prompting applause from the audience of several hundred open-source software devotees.
Negroponte, founder of the One Laptop Per Child nonprofit association, also revealed a few new tweaks to the design of the computers.
One distinctive element of the original design was for a hand crank to provide power to the laptops, which are being engineered to use just 2 watts of electricity, less than a 10th of what conventional portable computers generally consume.
But having a hand crank stuck to the device likely would have subjected the machine to too many wrenching forces, so it will now be connected to the AC electrical adapter.
In fact, because the adapter can rest on the ground, the power generator might take the form of a foot pedal rather than a hand crank altogether.
Negroponte had previously said the flexible devices will have a 7 inch (18cm) screen that can be read in sunlight.
It will save on costs by using the Linux operating system, peer-to-peer wireless connectivity and a 500 megahertz processor -- which was top of the line in the late 1990s.
One Laptop Per Child has big-name partners, including search leader Google Inc, chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices Inc, Linux distributor Red Hat Inc, Taiwanese laptop maker Quanta Computer Inc (
All have helped finance the project, which Negroponte said has raised US$29 million.
However, skeptics have questioned whether the device can meet Negroponte's goal of inspiring huge educational gains in the developing world.
Microsoft chairman Bill Gates has criticized the computers' design, including its lack of a hard disk drive -- though many people in the tech world believed he was more irked by the laptops' use of Linux, the free, open-source system that competes with Gates' proprietary Windows systems.
Intel executives, meanwhile, have suggested that Negroponte's laptop is a mere gadget that will lack too many PC functions.
Last week, Intel announced its own plans to sell an inexpensive desktop PC for beginners in developing countries.
Negroponte expressed frustration with Gates in particular, saying that the US$100 laptop designers are still working with Microsoft to develop a version of the Windows CE operating system that could run the machines.
"Geez, so why criticize me in public?" Negroponte asked.
Negroponte's plan is to begin distributing 5 million to 10 million of the laptops in China, India, Egypt, Brazil, Thailand, Nigeria and Argentina by early 2007.
Governments or donors will buy the laptops for children to own and use in and out of school, and the UN will help distribute the machines.
Eventually, Negroponte expects many other governments -- and not just those in technology-deprived places -- to come on board.
For example, Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney has expressed interest in buying the machines for schoolchildren.
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