Moscow (Russia) - Art Lebedev, developer and designer of the Optimus-103 keyboard, indicated in a recent post on the Optimus project blog that the OLED keyboard could be shipping in the first half of 2007. A major hurdle of the development, according to blog postings, appears to have been finding a manufacturer of OLEDs for the keyboard.

Art Lebedev said that the company asked 20 manufacturers for proposals, but only five answered - "probably because our specs require tooling and most factories are afraid of anything new." Earlier in December, the firm revealed that each of the 103 key displays will cost about $10, hinting to a price of well more than $1000 for the Optimus-103.

The OLEDs will be capable of displaying a resolution of 32x32 pixels and 65,536 colors in an active area of 9 mm x 9 mm.

As for the production time frame, Art Lebedev said that OLED manufacturing is expected to begin next month. The production cycle will take about 8 - 10 weeks, which could put delivery of first OLED-103 samples into the March or April 2007 area. Pricing still remains a mystery: "As soon as we'll know all the production costs, we'll start accepting pre-orders for Optimus-103. Most likely it will be February 2007," an Art Lebedev post reads.