Microsoft launches sexy new mice

Microsoft have gone where B.B. King has been for a while, Sony went a couple of years ago, and where Disney’s Stitch has been since his inception: everything is blue.

Microsoft have gone where B.B. King has been for a while, Sony went a couple of years ago, and where Disney’s Stitch has been since his inception: everything is blue.

Announced this week is BlueTrack, labeled as the “four-wheel drive of mice”.

Using a blue beam, specular optics, and a Microsoft-designed image sensor with some proprietry technology, Microsoft’s new mouse technology offers some of the best tracking and input technology the world has ever seen. From the sound of it, BlueTrack based devices look like they can be used on almost any surface which is something the traditional (these-days) red laser mice have some difficulty with.

Two mice will get the BlueTrack first with the Microsoft Explorer Mouse getting it in a full-size 2.4GHz wireless mouse with recharger base while the second is the Explorer Mini Mouse, a wireless version running on two AA batteries.

Most might not realise this but Microsoft were the ones behind the original optical mouse first launched in 1999. Look down at your mouse: if it’s got a red light coming from it, Microsoft did it first. This new technology might just reinvent the wheel (or the ball) if all goes well. We’ll have a review on one shortly.

Meanwhile, they’ve also brought out one of the more interesting designs to come out of a Microsoft hardware piece in a while.

It’s named the Arc and while it’s not an Ark of Truth, it is an Arc of fantastic design.

Encased in what appears to be a slender crescent, the Arc Mouse is a stylised and what appears to be comfortable mouse with a sloped surface. Interestingly, the wireless USB receiver for the Arc can be snapped into place under the back half of the mouse when not in use and the back half snapped close to make the mouse small and portable.

Strangely, the Arc doesn’t run on BlueTrack as Microsoft instead opted for the older but still high-performance laser tracking they’ve used on other mice up to now.

Written by Leigh D. Stark