$148 laptop unveiled

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and a leading US IT expert Nicholas Negroponte have unveiled the working prototype of a US$100 ($148) laptop aimed at millions of schoolchildren in poor countries.

The robust wind-up laptop is meant to be the backbone of an educational project to distribute the internet-connected computers at no cost to their future owners.

"It holds the promise of major advances in economic and social development, but perhaps most important is the true meaning of one laptop per child," Annan told reporters at the World Summit on the Information Society.

Annan broke the crank handle on the prototype as he left.