88 PCWorld FEBRUARY 2019FEATURE INSIDE PROJECT ATHENA
mbcn). Connectivity will also extend to
Connected Modern Standby, which will leave
the Athena hardware in a connected state
even when in sleep mode. Likewise, all
Athena Chromebooks will support what
Google calls “Lucid Sleep,” which also places
them in a connected mode
when in a suspended state.
Performance and
responsiveness is at the
heart of the 2019 Project
Athena hardware, Newman
said. “And we want to
maintain that performance
when they run on battery,”
he added.
There’s a great deal
more that Newman, Intel,
and its partners left
unsaid—namely, that theworld is evolving into a place
where the other major mobile
platform, the smartphone, has
threatened the throne of the
personal computer for years. But
after PC sales began falling—and
alarm bells began sounding—
through much of 2016, the PC
market began showing signs of life
and even renewed growth during
the end of 2017 and into 2018. A
PC which is going to survive, and
maybe even thrive, will require
continuous innovation.
That means championing the PC,
whoever makes it. “We know the PC and
believe deeply that the PC is where people
go to get things done that matter the most to
them,” Newman said. Athena will be the next
phase in the mobile PC’s evolution.Connecting the phone and the PC appears to be a goal of
Project Athena. This is Windows 10’s Your Phone app, part of
the Windows 10 October 2018 Update.Is this what you’ll be working on in a few years?