A working version of the much talked about $100 laptop was unveiled today. The lime green, hand crank powered unit (one minute of cranking = 10 minutes of run time) was displayed at the World Summit on the Information Society. The laptop features a 500MHz AMD processor, 7" color screen, WiFi connectivity, uses flash memory for storage and runs on Linux.

Even Hector Ruiz, CEO of AMD, which gave $2 million to OLPC, says success will require "developing larger ecosystems around ... tech support, application development, training and business models for the Internet service providers." Those elements aren't close to being in place, and Ruiz thinks the laptop's price won't drop to $100 for two to three years. Yet even skeptics are loath to pooh-pooh Negroponte's activism: "If he can pull it off," Hammond says, "my hat's off to him."

This news article was written on November 17, 2005, quoting CNN.