If you thought Apple set some high standards with the Magic Mouse, wait until you see what Microsoft has to brag about. According to German site ndevil.com, Microsoft Hardware developed the Touch Mouse, a touch sensitive mouse that doesn’t even have a wheel, like the Magic Mouse currently has. And the mouse can be used for more touch based gestures, not only those associated with a mouse.
At first glance, the mouse looks kind of regular, except there are no buttons, just a wide touch interface that makes for half the size of the device. To left or right click, you have to tap the respective parts of the device (pretty intuitive) and I guess that for wheeling you have to move your finger on the little line which usually hosts the wheel. It’s probably some kind of sensor that can mimic the wheel and transform the gestures into scrolling.
But that’s not all the Touch Mouse can do. The surface supports multi touch and it’s possible to use up to 3 fingers to cause actions on screen. The “One Finger” function lets scroll in any direction with precision and hyper scroll through large documents with a quick flick of a finger, while the thumb lets you go back and forward in your browser.
With two fingers you can manage multiple windows and change their appearance by minimizing, maximizing, restoring and snapping them together. Finally, the three finger move lets you manage the entire desktop area; if you move the fingers up, all open windows are displayed, while three fingers down clears the desktop (watch out from sneezing while holding the mouse).
Basic and multi touch gestures with the Microsoft Touch Mouse
The mouse uses the BlueTrack technology, being able to work of any type of surface and has a range of 30 feet. The device is compatible only with Windows 7 and will be available this May for $79.95. Check out the video demo to get the bigger picture.
