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Microsoft Wonder Bar: Apple Touch Bar gets competition in Windows 10X

The Wonder Bar will help users find shortcuts and make precise mouse movements.

Alison DeNisco Rayome Managing Editor
Managing Editor Alison DeNisco Rayome joined CNET in 2019, and is a member of the Home team. She is a co-lead of the CNET Tips and We Do the Math series, and manages the Home Tips series, testing out new hacks for cooking, cleaning and tinkering with all of the gadgets and appliances in your house. Alison was previously an editor at TechRepublic.
Expertise Home Tips, including cooking, cleaning and appliances hacks Credentials
  • National Silver Azbee Award for Impact/Investigative Journalism; National Gold Azbee Award for Online Single Topic Coverage by a Team; National Bronze Azbee Award for Web Feature Series
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Alison DeNisco Rayome
201-microsoft-surface-neo-and-surface-duo

The Microsoft Surface Neo will have a Wonder Bar.

 Sarah Tew/CNET

Apple's Touch Bar is getting some competition from Microsoft . On Tuesday, the tech giant revealed more details about its Wonder Bar -- a touch bar that will be built into dual-screen devices with its Windows 10X operating system. 

The Wonder Bar seeks to tap into the familiarity of a laptop while also increasing productivity and multitasking by acting as a virtual trackpad for precise mouse movements and being a home for system shortcuts, according to a Microsoft blog post.

"Apps using CompactOverlayView for always-on-top mini views like picture-in-picture, or MediaTransportControl for background audio playback, will automatically be placed into the Wonder Bar, for seamless and natural peripheral multitasking," the post said.

Developers can now download the Microsoft Emulator for Windows 10X to test apps for dual-screen devices, such as the upcoming Microsoft Surface Neo. 

Watch this: Microsoft debuts two dual-screen devices

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