82 PCWorld FEBRUARY 2019

FEATURE INSIDE PROJECT ATHENA

Ultrabooks debuted in 2011, arguably as a

response to the incredibly slim MacBook Air

that Apple CEO Steve Jobs was then pulling

out of manila envelopes. But don’t think that

Project Athena will go even thinner.

According to Josh Newman, the general

manager of mobile innovation segments for

Intel, Athena’s goal is for PC makers to deliver

improved performance and battery life (20

hours!) in what he called an already “thin

enough” form factor.

PLATFORM FIRST,

NOT INTEL INSIDE

Project Athena hardware is currently exclusive

to Intel’s processors. But with Athena, Intel’s

adopting a collaborative approach that

breaks from the original ultrabook.

A

little less than eight years ago

Intel helped usher in the era of

thin-and-light notebook PCs,

then called ultrabooks. Now,

Intel and a number of its partners are ready to

take the ultrabook to the next level with

“Project Athena,” in a multi-year roadmap

they unveiled at CES.

Intel executives say they have the support

of partners including Acer, Asus, Dell,

Google, HP, Lenovo, Microsoft, Samsung,

and Sharp. Yes, Google. You’ll eventually see

“Athena”-specced Chromebooks, too. What

Project Athena notebooks will eventually be

branded as hasn’t been formally decided yet,

but the timetable has; the first Project Athena

laptops will ship in the second half of 2019.

Unfortunately, they were not at CES.