Microsoft has been teasing a new piece of hardware via Twitter over the past week, and we now know what it is: The Arc Touch Mouse.
Details of the device began surfacing in early July as retailers began publishing store listings for a “Microsoft Arc Touch Mouse.” Microsoft registered arctouchmouse.com on March 30, and redirected it to a Bing search for “arctouchmouse.” According to inside sources, it is set to launch in September 2010.
Presumably, the mouse came about as a result of Microsoft’s “Mouse 2.0″ research project. The project outlined different designs for a possible multi-touch mouse, one of which looking very similar to the Arc Touch Mouse.
The Arc Touch mouse will be very similar to Apple’s Magic Mouse, in that it will support multi-touch on the top, while still behaving like a regular mouse. It is supposed to be an alternative to expensive Windows 7 touch displays.
Microsoft is not implementing multi-touch immediately. The device is simply introducing touch to the Windows platform, so multi-touch won’t be initially supported.
The device will likely cost $70, notably the same price as the Magic Mouse.
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