One of the biggest new features of Windows 10 for phone – and the last feature to be announced before RTM – is Continuum. Revealed at Build this week, the new tech lets users adopt two modes for their phone and a second display.

For instance, you can use your phone as a remote mouse and keyboard for the second screen. However, other operating systems can already do such things. The more interesting addition is the ability to run your phone on the second screen, including all the apps. Moreover, since these are universal Windows apps, they scale up just like being on a full PC. This technology lets you turn any second display into a full PC, and it could change how we think about computing.

New Hardware

During the Build keynote, Microsoft's Joe Belfiore made it quite clear that new phone hardware would be needed to power the graphics of two displays. Continuum is, after all, not Miracast. What that technology is exactly, is currently not known, but it has to do with dual video output.

Likewise, during the private media event where members of the press were allowed to ask members of the Windows leadership team questions, they were very cagey on this topic. It was made clear to us though that new phones would be needed. In fact, Belfiore could not even demo the feature on stage, and neither could they during this private media event.