After unveiling its grand imaginative and prescient for the way forward for cellular computing at CES in January, Intel lastly offered extra element on what precisely might be contained in the “Project Athena” notebooks that may start delivery later this 12 months, showcasing how the corporate thinks the laptop computer market ought to evolve.
Intel sees the “Project Athena” notebooks as basically the subsequent technology of ultrabooks, however they’re additionally a showcase for Intel’s strengths. There’s much less emphasis, for instance, on the 5G applied sciences that rival chipmaker Qualcomm deems important. Though the corporate isn’t defining precisely how an Athena pocket book needs to be made, the corporate does have compliance and qualification applications in place. Most importantly, Intel has additionally listed necessities for particular sorts of elements that needs to be included in a Project Athena laptop computer, reminiscent of a precision touchpad and Thunderbolt 3.
Failure to cross Intel’s verification assessments implies that the {hardware} accomplice received’t be allowed into Intel’s advertising applications, a cost-sharing program that may help the PC maker. This makes Intel’s necessities—extra of which the corporate started sharing simply earlier than Computex started—crucial.
IntelHere’s how a few of what customers such as you expertise in the actual world translate into the Project Athena testing metrics.
It’s an infinite change to how benchmark testing is normally carried out, based mostly upon repeatable benchmarks run below fastidiously managed circumstances. Sudha Ganesh, Intel’s senior director accountable for Systems and Solutions Assessments, advised reporters that she asks her workers to run the identical benchmarks as many as 30 occasions successively, in order to make sure outcomes that may differ, however overlap sufficient to generate a excessive diploma of statistical confidence within the end result.
“I’m not looking for the 10th decimal digit accuracy [on a benchmark], but to deliver [a result] so that I know what to expect from my laptop all the time,” Ganesh mentioned.
IntelWhat does all this imply? Well, we all know a bit of extra about what “Project Athena” notebooks may have below the hood after they start to ship later this 12 months. But, extra importantly, we all know that Intel didn’t design them to a set of numbers, however to one thing approximating the identical set of experiences that we face in the actual world. Does that imply Athena notebooks might be higher? We can’t say that for positive. But it seems like what we expertise as customers and what PC makers are designing for might be extra in line than they’ve traditionally been.
Editor’s observe: This article initially printed on May 28, 2019, however was up to date so as to add the video displaying some Project Athena laptops.
