A war of words has erupted between One Laptop per Child (OLPC) Nicholas Negroponte and Intel chairman Craig Barrett. According to the BBC, Professor Negroponte said that the chip-maker "should be ashamed of itself" for working to undermine the OLPC's US$ 100 laptop initiative.

Negroponte also said that Intel has "distributed marketing literature" to governments with titles like "the shortcomings of the One Laptop per Child approach." These reportedly outline the supposedly stronger points of the Classmate, Intel's new US$ 200 laptop.

Intel boss Barrett has dismissed these allegations as "crazy." "We're not trying to drive him out of business," he said. "We're trying to bring capability to young people." Barrett also noted that there are "lots of opportunities" for both camps to work together.

The 100-dollar laptop, which is the product of MIT's One Laptop Per Child Program, will make its debut in the next two weeks. Nicholas Negroponte has announced that the laptop will be shown at the National Educational Computing Conference on July 5-7. Aside from the $100 price tag, the contraption also requires little power thanks to a hand-crank that juices up the batteries which was designed to be suitable for places like Africa that have little to no electricity in most places.

When asked to elaborate on the conference, Mr. Negroponte said that "[The conference] will be the first public forum at which we not only show a working prototype of the $100 laptop, but also provide hands-on access to developer machines". But even if the project's intentions are good and noble, it still attracts some critics, specifically the hand-crank factor.

Some critics are saying that a minute of hand-cranked power would only equate to 10 minutes of battery life. Craig Barrett, Intel Chairman even said that the laptop is a "$100 gadget". Even education and health advocate, Bill Gates, can't help but criticize the thingamajig. In this year's Microsoft Goverment Leaders' Forum, he can't help but say "geez, get a decent computer where you can actually read the text and you’re not sitting there cranking the thing while you're trying to type". Harsh...

Mr. Negroponte believes that there is ample room for improvement. In the said conference, he plans on recruiting advisors for his $100 laptop wherein some attendeed will be asked to participate on their developer's program.