Reports that trials of the $100 laptop project will kick off in Thailand alone have been quashed by Nicholas Negroponte. Negroponte, the chairman of the One Laptop per Child group, said Monday that field trials of its low-cost PC for children in the developing world will start everywhere the laptop is required at roughly the same time.

In an e-mail sent to CNET News.com's sister site ZDNet UK, Negroponte said reports that trials would initially be limited to Thailand were inaccurate. "Visual models and developer board demos" will be sent to Nigeria in September, and to Thailand in October, for field trials, he said.

"We now have a display that can readily be mass-produced in standard LCD (liquid crystal display) factories, with no process changes,"

OLPC noted in a posting on its wiki site. "Our display has higher resolution than 95 percent of the laptop displays on the market today; approximately one-seventh of the power consumption; one-third of the price; sunlight readability; and room-light readability with the backlight off."

While the initial goal of the OLPC project was to develop a portable PC for use in the developing world for around $100, the likely cost has risen to around $135 to $140,
Negroponte wrote.

"It is a floating price. We are a non-profit organization. We have a target of $100 by 2008, but probably it will be $135, maybe $140. That is a start price, but what we have to do is with every release make it cheaper and cheaper. We are promising that the price will go down," Negroponte told attendees of the Red Hat Summit in Nashville in June.

Andrew Donoghue of ZDNet UK reported from London.

Originally Published on August 22 2006

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