Negroponte took swipes at Microsoft Corp. and Intel Corp., both of which have publicly criticized the practicality of OLPC.

"If I'm annoying Microsoft and Intel, I'm probably doing something right," he said.

He pooh-poohed criticism that poor Third World children won't immediately benefit from the computers. Kids, he asserts, possess an unselfconscious curiousity and natural adaptiveness.

"You take a kid out of the jungle with zero literacy and drop them in the middle of Paris for eight weeks, and they will learn to speak French," he said. Similarly, "Kids just dive into technology."

He cites his experience bringing 50 laptop computers to a rural school he founded in Cambodia several years ago. "The first English word those kids learned was 'Google,' because that's where they were spending all their time," he said. The parents, he joked were "thrilled" for a different reason: "The computer instantly became the brightest light source in their homes, which were usually one-room huts."