A prototype of the laptop has been specified at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is expected to sign a partnership agreement with the head of the One Laptop per Child project, Nicholas Negroponte, in Davos, Switzerland, on Saturday, according to a Reuters report.

Davos is hosting the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, a gathering of politicians, economists and business executives.

UNDP and One Laptop per Child are set to work together with local and international partners to get the laptops into schools in developing countries, according to the Reuters report. This could create a market for tens of millions of the computers.

MIT has produced a prototype computer specification. Pictures show the machine in lime green livery. MIT stressed that the computers would not be for sale. The expectation is that children will own them but that governments and charitable organizations will pay for them.

The machines are set to comprise a Linux operating system; a dual-mode LCD for viewing as a full color transmissive display and as a sunlight readable transflective display; a 500-MHz processor, 128-Mbytes of DRAM and 500-Mbytes of flash memory. There will be no hard disk but the machine is sepcified to have four USB ports and a wireless broadband connection that can join a mesh network.

Taiwan's Quanta Computer Inc. has agreed to devote engineering resources from the Quanta Research Institute (QRI) the first half of 2006, with a target of bringing the product to market the fourth quarter (see Dec. 13, 2005, story).

Although the MIT Web site does not discuss processor selection Advanced Micro Devices Inc. has been listed as a supporter of the $100 laptop along with Brightstar, Google, News Corp., Nortel, and Red Hat.