After a month of rumors and leaks, Microsoft has released the Arc Touch Mouse. The device is available for presale on Amazon.com, BestBuy.com, and Buy.com for $69.95. It will ship in early December, and will officially be available online and in stores in January 2011.

Redmond is touting Arc Touch as "the first mouse designed to flatten for portability and pop up for comfort." It's all about portability: less than 15 millimeters thick at its widest point, it collapses to turn off and pops up to turn on. The mouse requires two AAA batteries that Microsoft says give it more than six months of battery life (the two-color battery life indicators will keep you informed).

In addition to its compact form factor (see the Silverlight demo), the Arc Touch has a capacitive touch scroll strip: move a finger slowly on the strip for controlled scrolling, or flick a finger for fast scrolling that can be stopped with a simple tap. The mouse uses a capacitive sensing technique and sensor pads to detect each position and velocity change, and also includes haptic feedback to simulate the bumps of a traditional scroll wheel. The strip also has three tap buttons: page up, page down, and a reprogrammable (Microsoft's IntelliPoint software required) middle click area.

The Arc Touch includes Microsoft's usual mouse features such as a magnetic 2.4GHz wireless Nano transceiver that snaps into the bottom of the mouse and BlueTrack technology to let users use the device on virtually any surface. The only requirements are a USB port, and either Windows XP, Windows Vista, or Windows 7.