Continuing his global wanderings to every conference and speaking opportunity, Nicholas Negroponte traveled to Abu Dhabi today to speak to Shaikh Nahyan Bin Mub-arak Al Nahyan, Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research, and the Abu Dhabi Men's College about the One Laptop Per Child project.

Not one to resist a moment of hyperbole, Dr. Negroponte is quoted by Gulf News as saying that the 2B1 Children's Machine is a:

"unique harmony of form and function; a flexible, ultra low-cost, power-efficient, responsive and durable machine with which emerging nations can leapfrog decades of development, immediately transforming the content and quality of their children's learning."

He also still gave the impression that the OLPC laptop would be powered by a hand crank even though Dr. Nicholas Negroponte himself revealed the string generator mock-ups two weeks ago. He also repeated his minimum order quantity:

"Manufacturing will begin when 5 to 10 million machines have been ordered and paid for in advance," he said.

This oft-repeated quote may one day be trouble for Dr. Negroponte, what with military coup risk in Thailand and Presidential run-offs in Brazil threatening commitments of two buyers.