The first generation of XO laptop computers failed to meet the $100 price tag, but the second generation will do even better, OLPC CEO Nicholas Negroponte suggested at the Global Country Workshop on Tuesday. The XO-2 will be smaller, faster, less power-consuming, and aims at an even lower target price of $75.

It all sounds good now, but is it possible? The One Laptop Per Child Project has been struggling with ways of lowering the price of the initially promised to be a $100 laptop; in reality, the price stopped at $188. The next generation of XO laptops should be ready by 2010 and should cost less than half the price of the current Xo laptop…now that’s a challenge.

Negroponte described the XO-2 as a device similar to an electronic book, with dual-touch sensitive displays, and no hardware keyboard, which can act like the pages of a book or as a regular laptop, depending on the user’s desires. The dual-touch display was designed by Pixel Qi, which was founded in early 2008 by Mary Lou Jepsen, former chief technology officer of One Laptop per Children and a leading expert on display technology (yes, she’s back!).

The book-like laptop is to be expected sometime in 2010. According to Negroponte, it will be promoted as an e-book reader, especially adapted to the needs of students in developing countries like China or Brazil.

OLPC is expected to continue the project with Microsoft and offer dual-boot on the XO laptops, and hopefully, there will be no more contradictory discussions with any of the partners (we all remember the abrupt divorce between OLPC and Intel).

Negroponte also unveiled that the “Give One, Get One” program will be resumed in late summer or in September this year (the program was initiated in November 2007, and allowed people to purchase two laptops and give one of them to a child in a developing country).