MANILA, Philippines—The power at a person’s fingertips was made famous through the introduction of the touchscreen. Microsoft aims to give more power to users by putting a touch surface on the mouse.
Microsoft Philippines unveiled its latest hardware innovation, the Touch Mouse. It is capable of recognizing finger gestures on its surface similar to the touch screen on many smart phones and tablet computers.
KT Ng, Director for the Consumer Channels Group of Microsoft Philippines said they are “improving hardware for the users’ benefit.”
“The Touch Mouse is a new multi-touch device designed for Windows 7 that lets people click, flick, scroll and swipe, making it easy and fun to interact with their personal computers,” Microsoft said in a statement.
In a demonstration, Microsoft showed how the Touch Mouse recognizes finger gestures on its surface. One fingertip sliding up or down the surface of the mouse will scroll the window in the respective direction, similar to how a mouse-wheel works. The mouse can also scroll in the left and right directions by moving the fingertip in the respective direction. This is particularly useful for large worksheets that do not fit in the screen.
Using two fingers, the user can gesture to minimize, restore, or maximize windows. By placing two fingertips on the mouse surface and sliding them down, the current window will become minimized. Sliding two fingertips upward restores the window or, if it is already open, maximizes it. Gesturing two fingertips to the left or right will move and snap the current window to the respective side of the screen.
But there’s more. Using three fingertips, the user can minimize all open windows and reveal the desktop, or show a screen that displays all the windows. Sliding three fingertips downwards on the surface of the mouse will minimize all windows. Sliding them in the opposite direction will show a screen that displays a snapshot of all open windows so the user can navigate between them easily. This feature is similar to the Alt+Tab feature on windows operating systems.
“These new devices are great ways for customers to interact naturally with their Windows 7-based PC,” Jerry Dy, the Retail Sales Manager of Microsoft Philippines, said in their statement.
“Microsoft has been working hard to develop the multi-touch gestures that make Windows 7 easier, simpler and more fun to use,” he added.
The Touch Mouse is the latest in a family of Touch Mice created by Microsoft. Its features work only in Microsoft’s latest operating system, Windows 7. They had early created the Arc Touch mouse, which features a bendable body to make it portable and easy to carry around.
They had also created the Explorer Touch mouse that introduced a unique horizontal scroll capability on its touch strip surface by moving the fingertip left or right.
All mice are wireless and, using their BlueTrack technology, are capable of working on any surface that is not transparent or mirrored.
The Touch Mouse is available for P3,990. The Explorer Touch and Arc Touch mice are available for P2,500 and P3,435 respectively.