This weird, tiny cylinder controls the new Surface Studio PC

At Microsoft's keynote in New York on Wednesday, the company unveiled a curious little puck, called the Surface Dial, that can be placed directly onto the new Surface Studio's screen. 

The Surface Studio is Microsoft's first all-in-one Windows 10 PC, that seems directly aimed at architects, designers, artists, animators and other professionals working in creative fields. 

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It works kind of like an electronic palette. From the demonstration, it appears that when it's placed on the computer, a color wheel appears that artists and designers can use to precisely pick what shade to use for their work. 

Image: microsoft

It also looks like it could be used to precisely time things like animations. 

The Surface Studio is insanely powerful and comes packed with 980M graphics. The dial helps creators take advantage of all that power and finely tune their work.

It can also be used for much more basic things, like controlling the volume of your Spotify tunes. For that sort of use, there's no need to put the Surface Dial directly onto the screen. It works from off to the side as well. 

The Surface Studio can be pre-ordered beginning Wednesday starting at $2,999 and it comes with the curious little puck. The Surface Dial will be availbe on its own beginning November 10th for $99.

Image: Microsoft