Chrome OS powered computers are increasingly becoming popular so its imperative for the company to continue improving the software while its hardware partners work on the rest. The Chromium OS team is now experimenting with “Athena,” its a brand new project which brings user interface changes for this cloud-based operating system. Google’s François Beaufort has himself offered us a first look at Athena.
To be fair this isn’t the first time that we have heard about Athena. Hints and clues about this new user interface project have been spotted in the OS code for quite some time now. Those who tinker with it at that level have been aware that a new UI experience is on the horizon.
It should be kept in mind that what we see here is the first draft so by the time the team is done with it, Athena would certainly look a lot nicer. It does show us how users will be able to stack their open browser windows like cards that they can flip through. This aims to make window management on Chrome OS simple.
Users can follow this work in progress by following the instructions that Beaufort has provided. Since its a part of Chrome OS that is separate from the browser, its unlikely that novice users will notice the change, since the Chrome browser is the thing users see the most when they’re using a Chrome OS device.