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Many people were skeptical that MIT Media Lab could churn out a laptop for $100. And they were right. It'll cost between $130 and $140 until the One Laptop Per Child lead Nicholas Negroponte can fill enough orders to drop it to $100. But it's been a valiant effort and excitement around the recently unveiled prototypes is growing.

Last week, Negroponte and his team unveiled the rugged, human-powered, mesh-networked, drop-it-in-the-mud-if-you-want, rubber bound prototypes to the world, posting photos of them on Flickr. Weighing two pounds, the machine is powered by Linux Fedora operating system and will be available to world governments beginning in April 2007.

There are still a few bugs to work out, like sunlight readability of the screens (which will be 25% larger in the final version) and deciding on the final look among the three finalists. Pricing will depend on the amount of RAM ordered, but Negroponte expects to reach the $100 price point as orders reach 5 or 6 million.

Several countries with impoverished citizens have shown active interest in purchasing the laptops, including Argentina, Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria, Russia, and Thailand.

The laptop will operate under a Creative Commons license, giving their young recipients "unrestricted rights to content." The Red Hat desktop team also recently added "buddy icons" to illustrate the system's chat features.

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Jason L. Miller is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.