At Joe Belfiore’s demo of Continuum he suggested that phones will need new hardware to support the feature, but in the session now available for download program manager Gino Sega revealed that over Miracast no new hardware is needed.

Miracast wireless screen casting is already available on Snapdragon 800 powered Windows Phones like the Lumia 930 and 1520, opening up the possibility that it will be coming to existing devices with W10M upgrade.

Interestingly Continuum will not just be for turning your phone in a desktop. Using the CAST API and ProjectionManager API developers will be able to create apps with an experience on a big screen (like games) with controls and other features are on the phone, much like Airplay on iOS.

Gallery

The video embedded below is a must-see for fans of the technology.

See the technology demoed at the 4 minute mark, the Continuum control app at the 9 minute mark, which allows you to use your phone as a mouse controller, the reflowing Files app at the 31 minute mark, Office at the 33 minute mark and the CAST and ProjectionManager API at the 41:30 mark.

Update: Unfortunately is seems Gino was not completely clear in his statement, and Microsoft has once again confirmed that new hardware is needed.