And lo and behold, Microsoft launched the device's official Website, complete with a nifty little animation of the Arc Touch in action. In addition to that flexing form-factor (2.28 inches wide by 5.14 inches long), the device (which will ship in early December) has a 30-foot wireless range and includes a touch-to-scroll strip, a snap-on nano-transceiver and six months' worth of (advertised) battery life. Retail price: $70.

Early reviews seem pretty positive, and devote a lot of digital ink to that super-sensitive touch strip. Personally, I can see its advantages over a traditional wheel: fewer parts to get grimy, ability to "flick" rapidly through long menus, etc. There are also three tap "buttons," one of which is programmable.

Apple's music event Sept. 1, which saw a revamped iPod Nano with a touch screen, and Samsung's unveiling of its Galaxy Tab slate PC suggest that multitouch control is rapidly assuming its full adulthood. Yet despite all the buzz surrounding the category, desktops--and the mice that allow you to procrastinate before one with ever-greater efficiency--remain a dominant form factor.

"This is not the first time that the mouse has been threatened--look at 10 years ago when people started buying laptops that had integrated pointers and touch pads," Brett Ostrum, general manager of Microsoft's hardware group, said in a Sept. 1 statement. "The reasons people need external mice will not change: comfort and precision."

This is an image of the mouse's box that leaked from a German Website a couple weeks ago:

"VMware is asking many of you to sign three-year license agreements for your virtualization projects," reads the ad, ostensibly authored by Brad Anderson, vice president of Microsoft's Management and Security Division. "Signing up for a three-year virtualization commitment may lock you into a vendor that cannot provide you with the breadth of technology, flexibility or scale that you'll need to build a complete cloud computing environment."

Anderson then makes the pitch for Microsoft: "If you're evaluating a new licensing agreement with VMware, talk to us first. You'll have nothing to lose and plenty to gain."

This particular feud isn't new or low-profile; during July's Worldwide Partner Conference in Washington, D.C., Microsoft COO Kevin Turner described how his company would aggressively pursue VMware's key corporate clients. From the transcript of his keynote:

"In the next six months VMware, the majority of their enterprise license agreements will expire and require a renewal, because when those were formed three years ago we didn't really have a good competitive solution, but what a partner opportunity we can go after right now in the next six months."

During the same event, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer claimed the company held 30 percent of the virtualization market. Virtualization products play a key part in Microsoft's future plans, which also involve extending cloud-based IT services to the enterprise. And that's enough to get Microsoft rolling at the smaller company with the aggression of Marlon Brando heading for the buffet table. (Yes, I've used that line before. No, it never gets old.)

USA Today, of course, doubtlessly finds its way to the doorways of most hotel rooms in the San Francisco area. I'm just wondering how many VMworld attendees will give that ad serious thought. Editor's note: A timeframe was corrected in Kevin Turner's quote.

The company's baked a good amount of voice search into the app, allowing you to say things like "movies" in order to pull down info like theaters and show times. I haven't had a chance to test it out, since my current Android phone (the upcoming Samsung Epic 4G) doesn't run on Verizon's network, but I've no doubt that my colleague Clint Boulton and his trusty Droid Whatever are putting the app through its paces as we speak.

Obviously, the Bing for Mobile Android bears a more-than-passing resemblance to the version available for iPhone. And I can only assume that similar functionality will find its way onto Windows Phone 7, once those devices begin trickling onto the street.

Now that Yahoo's transferred its back-end search to Bing, raising the latter's share of the search-engine market to nearly a third (depending on the outside analysis company), the competition between Microsoft and Google will only intensify--not that it isn't at DEFCON-2 already. Given how much the two companies will depend on mobile for their broader corporate strategy, trust their smartphone-search-app battle to follow the one for traditional search, with a tit-for-tat matching of features.

As the old capitalist cliché about competition goes, the ultimate victors will be consumers. In the meantime, though, it'll be interesting to see how Bing and Google build out their smartphone offerings.

Until now, perhaps. That's because a Microsoft Russia site might have accidentally posted a screenshot of IE 9's interface. Mary Jo Foley over at All About Microsoft seems to have spotted the image first, before a site administrator yanked it down, and posted it on her blog along with a machine translation of the accompanying text:

If the image is authentic, and that text a reflection of the final product, then IE 9 will include a streamlined navigation panel with a merged search/address bar, as well as Firefox-style tabs that can "rip away" to become new windows. To me, at least, the interface feels quite a bit like Google Chrome.

What do you think?

(I'd embed the YouTube clip for that last one, but I don't want to be responsible when its sheer mind-numbing awfulness drives you to leap from the nearest roof.)

Originally code-named Chicago, Windows 95 introduced the Start menu, taskbar, and limited multimedia support. Its system requirements seem quaint in retrospect: PC with 386DX or higher processor (486 recommended), 4MB of memory, one 3.5-inch high-density floppy disk drive, VGA or higher screen resolution.

The operating system also developed into a platform for Microsoft's push onto the Internet--although Windows 95 didn't come bundled with Internet Explorer upon its initial release, the company included the browser with its Windows 95 Plus! Pack. The conjoining of Windows with Internet Explorer, of course, would eventually help trigger Microsoft's antitrust headache.

With those elements (and more) in place, Windows 95's interface was far more user-friendly than the clunkier Windows 3.1x, helping accelerate its adoption even without the $300 million marketing campaign.

Microsoft eventually declared Windows 95 obsolete in 2001. Even so, the operating system established the template for later Windows versions--including Windows 7, which Microsoft claims has sold 175 million licenses since its October 2009 release. The question is, having spent 15 years hewing so close to a certain model for its operating systems, where does Microsoft go from here? The cloud, and the attendant paradigm shift, looms ever closer.

The mouse's current evolution, it seems, centers on making it more touch-centric than ever. Look at Apple's Magic Mouse, with a multitouch surface that allows for scrolls, swipes and zooms. Then there's Microsoft's Arc Touch Mouse, images of which recently appeared on a German shopping Website. Microsoft's not making anything official, but if the rumors prove true, the mouse includes some features that would give Sonny Crockett a severe case of future shock: touch-scrolling, a 2.4GHz nano transceiver and the ability to flatten its regular arched shape for easier transport.

The mouse's page on that German Website has already been taken down, but Engadget managed to snatch some screenshots ahead of the deletion. Slashgear's also posted a supposed marketing image, which has the Arc Touch Mouse looking like a black plastic inchworm.

Rumors peg the mouse's price at $69.95, and its release date sometime during the fall (soon, in any case). Personally, aside from the coolness factor, I don't see the point of a mouse that can alternatively curve or flatten--I know some people would rather use a mouse with their laptops, and carry one along on trips; but I didn't figure enough of them out there to justify that sort of engineering decision. In any case, it's a differentiator.

Given how that silver strip bifurcates the top of the mouse into two black "tabs," I'm guessing this is a two-button mouse in the tradition of previous Microsoft offerings. Does a finger-swipe on that strip activate the touch scrolling? I'm thinking maybe; it's certainly positioned in the same place as a traditional scroll wheel. I'm curious about whether this follows in the steps of the Magic Mouse, with a multitouch surface, or if we're dealing with old-fashioned mechanical buttons.

Either way, Microsoft will likely make an announcement soon. For your viewing pleasure, here's one of the snatched box shots that's been drifting around the Interwebs:

Given its outsized position in peoples' Web lives--despite strong challenges from Firefox and Google Chrome, IE retains a lion's share of the browser market--it's easy to forget the browser's tiny stature upon its release in August 1995. At 1MB in size, and incapable of displaying graphics or newsgroups, Internet Explorer 1.0 could be forgiven for seeming like an afterthought; it came installed as part of the Internet Jumpstart Kit (subsequently Internet Connection Wizard), itself part of the Windows 95 Plus! Pack.

IE descended from an early Web browser named Mosaic, whose source code Microsoft licensed from a small company named Spyglass--which later filed a lawsuit over loss of royalties, once Redmond started giving away IE for free.

From that point on, though, the browser grew in complexity. The final version of IE 2.0, released in November 1995, supported newsgroups, cookies, Javascript, frames and the SSL (Secure Socket Layer). A little under a year later, Internet Explorer 3 featured support for .gifs and .jpg files, as well as MIDI sound files and streaming audio. By the time Internet Explorer 4 rolled around in 1997, the browser included another layer of multimedia features (Web Publishing Wizard, where are you now?)

In 1998, Microsoft found itself faced with antitrust action over the bundling of its Web browser with Windows. Microsoft argued that browser and operating system were mutually dependent, and eventually reached a settlement with the Department of Justice in 2001. But the case's effects continue to reverberate, in subtle ways; Microsoft executives' continual use of the word "choice" when describing any new initiative ("we realize customers have a choice") is one of those, I suspect.

Even with the publicity surrounding antitrust case, though, Internet Explorer continued to hold a dominant market position (Netscape had been thoroughly pulverized by that point). It was only until the rise of Firefox, along with challenges from Google Chrome and other browsers, that IE's share has been seriously threatened.

Then again, not that threatened--at least, not yet. Net Applications estimated IE's July market share at 60.74 percent, an increase from June's 60.32 percent. At the same time, the analysis firm estimated Firefox's share at 22.91 percent, Chrome at 7.16 percent, Safari at 5.09 percent, and Opera at 2.45 percent.

If IE's own history proves anything, though, it's that things change. Microsoft will launch its public beta of Internet Explorer 9 on Sept. 15, in a high-profile event in San Francisco; their hope is that the browser's improvements--which reportedly include speedier browser performance, greater compatibility and compliance with standards, and enhanced HTML5 support--will allow it to retain that market share for some time to come.

That was one of the nuggets pulled from an Aug. 10 talk at the Oppenheimer Annual Technology, Media & Telecommunications Conference by Bill Koefoed, Microsoft's general manager of investor relations. Near the end of that event, an analyst in the audience asked a question about Microsoft's retail stores, which have been opening over the past year in cities such as Denver and San Diego.

"I think we have six open today, or we've announced six," Koefoed told the audience, according to a transcript released by Microsoft. "We think stores are important. We think they're important to give the end customer the experience of our products in an environment that we think we can optimize."

That being said, Koefoed added, "We've got to get the model right, and I think [Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's] been pretty clear that the stores need to make money." To that end, "We're continuing to grow at a prudent pace, one that we're learning from, and one that we're going to continue to learn from [to] make sure that we're making the right investments in the right places."

After months of Microsoft executives trumpeting that they were preparing to challenge Apple's retail experience head-on (and hiring George Blankenship, the former Gap executive who helped launch Apple's retail arm in 2001, to assist in the effort), the company opened stores in Scottsdale, Ariz., and Mission Viejo, Calif., in late 2009.

Since then, Microsoft has seemed content to dip its toes in the water: a store opening here, another one there. The company could be reluctant to challenge big-box stores such as Best Buy that already sell Microsoft products and would doubtlessly be irritated if Redmond tried to seize a major chunk of their electronics revenue. But this could also be a more generalized feeling-out of the retail space; no sense in spending hundreds of millions on invading strip malls across the country if your company lacks the institutional knowledge to make such a strategy work.

In any case, Microsoft likely won't be challenging Apple store-for-store any time soon--but based on Koefoed's comments, the company obviously sees value in continuing the retail effort.

During the late and unlamented Windows Vista era, those ads forced Microsoft on the defensive; not until the economic recession compelled PC buyers to give serious thought to cheaper devices (allowing Microsoft to score points with a series of ads emphasizing PCs' ostensible cost-effectiveness), and Windows 7 negated many of the arguments about buggy Microsoft operating systems, did Redmond seem to find its public footing again. The last few "Get A Mac" ads, one of which tried to launch a broadside at Windows 7, were also the series' weakest:

Now Microsoft's reviving that old rivalry somewhat, with its PC vs. Mac Website. Some of the information presented here is accurate: Windows PCs really do have more gaming options than Macs, and there are some security advantages.

In other areas, however, Microsoft's arguments are more subjective. "While some may say Macs are easy, the reality is that they can come with a learning curve," insists one section. "PCs running Windows 7 look and work more like the computers you're familiar with, so you can get up and running quickly."

There are obvious differences between the respective user interfaces of Mac OS X and Windows 7, but anyone who uses one can learn the other fairly quickly. Does it take time? Sure. But I've also known technologically inept individuals who, having spent their working lives on Windows machines, were able to make the leap to Mac versatility in an afternoon. I use both operating systems, often side by side, for hours a day; the differences aren't even close to insurmountably vast.

That aside, Microsoft shoots itself in the foot when it comes to the Website's Compatibility section. "Apple's productivity suite file formats won't open in Microsoft Office on PCs," this part claims. "This can be a real hassle for Mac users sharing work documents with PC users."

I suppose that was true a decade ago. And maybe iWork has some compatibility issues, despite Apple's insistence to the contrary, but I also don't know a single Mac user who relies on it; everyone in that category uses either Office for Mac or Google Docs. By suggesting that documents created on a Mac are incompatible with a PC, Microsoft seems to be implicitly denigrating its own work in creating Apple software--but given how the company stands to profit more if someone purchases a Windows 7-equipped PC, as opposed to a Mac running Office, I'm sure that position was regarded as the lesser of two corporate evils.

In its public-facing communications, Microsoft likes to emphasize how consumers have a choice. For its part, Apple has a Webpage where it touts the benefits of Macs over PCs. Either way, I'm happy to see the discourse between the two companies has elevated itself above a kindergarten level.

A just-published Microsoft research paper (PDF) describes Menlo as "a prototype mobile device with a capacitive touch screen (4.1 [inch] diagonal, 800 x 480) running Microsoft Windows Embedded CE 6.0 R2 which incorporates a Bosch BMA150 3-axis accelerometer and Bosch BMP085 digital pressure sensor (barometer)."

Foley's Aug. 8 blog post includes an image, taken from the paper, of a smartphonelike device. Additionally, a number of the project's researchers seem focused on sensors, particularly within the context of geolocation (an application layered atop Menlo, "Greenfield," apparently enables users to retrace their path). Even with that information, though, it's hard to glean the project's ultimate aim: Microsoft already has Windows Phone 7 prepped for the mobile arena, and it's unlikely the company will pursue another homegrown phone project after taking a multimillion-dollar bath on the whole Kin debacle.

As Foley hints, this might have something to do with Microsoft and ARM's recent architecture licensing agreement, which could see Microsoft using ARM's technology offerings to build tablets or smartphones. Or maybe Microsoft's just pursuing yet another research avenue, with no definitive goal in mind. If it's the former, we'll probably find out relatively soon--Microsoft is prepping for a major play (some would say "make or break") in the smartphone and tablet arena over the next several quarters.