Is Microsoft Hardware finally going to release a multi-touch mouse? That's what we're betting, after the division responsible for the company's mice and keyboards issued a couple teasers on Twitter hinting at the upcoming release of something "flat" and "touchy" and posting a partial image of the secret product.

It was hard to tell based on that first image alone, but enterprising Engadget readers found a second image in Microsoft Hardware's Twitpic account that, when combined with the first, creates the composite image above.

A mouse with a touch-sensitive surface would make sense, given the prototypes that Microsoft's Applied Sciences Group and Microsoft Research showed us last year on the company's Redmond campus. After seeing that demo, we later gave the company a hard time for letting Apple beat it to market with its touch-based Magic Mouse. More recently, Apple came out with the follow-up Magic Trackpad.

At any rate, who knows, it could be something else entirely, but we'll be surprised if it is. To get a sense for what the company may have in store, here's the video of the various mouse prototypes that Microsoft was demonstrating as of last fall.