The Touch Mouse lets users do everything they’re used to doing with a mouse, such as point and click, but adds multi-touch functionality that helps them navigate Windows 7 easier and faster with a flick of their fingers.

The tasks the users do everyday such as minimizing and maximizing windows, scrolling through Web pages, all that functionality is available right at the top of the mouse with a touch of a finger.”

The users can navigate with Touch Mouse in a variety of ways:

One finger allows users to scroll 360 degrees through the document they’re in.

Two fingers allow them to manage the active window they’re using and perform tasks such as maximizing and minimizing windows or snapping them left or right.

Three fingers allow users to manage their whole desktop by switching between different tasks or clearing all open windows.

A flick of the thumb allows users to move forward and back in programs such as Internet Explorer, PowerPoint, and Windows Photo Viewer.

Hidden inside the Touch Mouse’s deceptively simple design is more than two years of cross-company research.  The product evolved from the Mouse 2.0 project, a joint effort started in 2008 by Microsoft Research teams in Redmond and Cambridge and the Applied Sciences Group from Microsoft Hardware. Their goal was to combine the standard capabilities of a mouse with multi-touch sensing.

The team initially explored a wide range of technologies and interaction models, relying heavily on user feedback. They ended up with five different research prototypes representing different types of multi-touch sensors: camera-based; articulated, meaning they stitched together three mouse sensors; and capacitive, which have functionality similar to a laptop’s track pad. After careful consideration the team decided on the capacitive-sensing model because it allowed for multi-touch gestures without abandoning the familiar mouse shape. They made many probable shapes keeping in mind that it has to be comfortable in the hand and yet provide the right surface for natural gestures with all five fingers. The team conducted extensive user research and tested hundreds of forms and models before settling on a mouse with a 23 degree slope, a sweet spot that gives the users the comfortable shape and enough flatness to perform gestures for which it has been designed.

Over several months, they continued to refine the sensor design and tweak functionality. The result became the Touch Mouse, which lets PC owners use natural gestures to access the features in Windows 7 they want to use most. Touch is an increasingly popular way of interacting with technology, but it’s primarily taken hold in small handheld devices. Direct touch technology is good for some things but not for others. It makes scrolling and flicking through digital pictures a breeze, but clicking in a small cell in Excel – not so much.

Only a fraction of Windows 7 users have touch enabled natively in the hardware. Touch Mouse is part of Microsoft Hardware’s effort to bring touch to millions of Windows 7 users.  Other Devices are the Explorer Touch Mouse, the Arc Touch Mouse, and the soon-to-be-released Touch Mouse Artist Edition.