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How to Back Up and Restore WhatsApp Chats with Google Drive

Microsoft today announced that it had wrapped up work on Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (SP1), and would start delivering the major upgrade on Feb. 22 through Windows Update.

The company said it had reached the “release to manufacturing,” or RTM milestone for both Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, and was shipping the code to PC and server makers today.

Customers who subscribe to either TechNet or the Microsoft Software Developer Network (MSDN) can download Windows 7 SP1 starting Wednesday, Feb. 16, the same day companies with volume license agreements can grab the upgrade.

The general public must wait until Tuesday, Feb. 22, when SP1 hits the Windows Update service. Microsoft typically reserves the last Tuesday of each month for shipping non-security updates.

Bing caught copying search results from Google

In a case of Internet espionage that makes the antics of double agent Cold War operatives seem like frivolous child play, Bing has been caught stealing search results from Google with its Bing toolbar and IE8’s Suggested Sites feature.

Google first suspected foul play in May 2010. By October 2010, with Bing results beginning to look uncannily like Google’s, it knew something had to be done about it — and so, in true, nerdtastic style, Google set up a sting to prove that Microsoft was actually behind the wholesale mimicry of Google’s search results.

Google injected “synthetic” results into its search engine — fake queries and results that no real user or engine would ever generate. Then, on D-Day, December 17, about 20 Google engineers were asked to run the test queries with Internet Explorer 8, Bing Bar and Suggested Sites. By December 31, some of these fake results began appearing on Bing. See the examples after the break — it’s damning.

For a full discussion of Bing’s antics, and what repercussions Microsoft might have to face, read the original Search Engine Land post.

Microsoft’s Kinect Selling Twice As Fast As The iPad

The adoption rate of the iPad was celebrated as the fastest ever in electronics history. Now, less than a year after the tablet’s launch, Microsoft has usurped that distinction with Kinect.

Kinect, Microsoft’s new controller-free gaming peripheral for the Xbox 360, has been selling at a breakneck pace, with 2.5 million sensors sold within its first 25 days on the market (Read reviews of the Kinect).

As ReadWriteWeb notes, this means consumers have been purchasing Kinect twice as quickly as the iPad, which hit the 2 million mark two months after its release. Based on Kinect’s sales thus far, ReadWriteWeb estimates that Microsoft is selling 100,000 Kinects per day. With approximately 4.5 million iPads sold every 90 days, Apple is moving an average of 50,000 iPads per day.

There are some caveats to these calculations–although they aren’t likely to stop the Redmond giant from toasting its victory against Apple.

The Kinect figures include sales over Black Friday, typically the busiest shopping day of the year. And Microsoft’s gaming gadget ($150-$400 each) is around half as expensive as Apple’s iPad, which starts at $500. The two are also very different devices, one a gaming accessory to be used in the home, the other a portable tablet computer.

Still, the numbers suggest Microsoft has a hit on its hands, good news for a company looking for an “in” with consumers and high hopes of enticing non-gamers to fire up their Xboxes.

Microsoft hopes to sell a total of 5 million units by the end of the holiday season. Do you think they can meet that goal?

Microsoft Is Said to Seek More Management Changes

Microsoft Corp. Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer plans to extend a management shake-up aimed at adding senior product executives with an engineering background, two people with knowledge of the decision said.

Changes may be announced this month, said one of the people, who declined to be named because the plans are private. Last month, Ballmer pushed out server division president and 23- year company veteran Bob Muglia, saying the company needed new leadership that could focus on areas such as cloud software.

The move would expand on an effort to promote managers who have engineering skills and experience executing product plans — a bid to catch up with rivals such as Apple Inc. and Google Inc. in Web services, smartphones and tablet computers. The overhaul also may quell criticism from the board and investors that Microsoft is falling behind in some markets. Four top executives have left the company since May.

“You see the engineering team ascending because Steve is realizing that there is a need to execute on a vision and in order to do that you have to actually understand how software is built,” said Wes Miller, an analyst at the Kirkland, Washington-based research firm Directions on Microsoft. “It’s a whole other thing to be able to say, ‘I’ve been at Microsoft, I understand software, and what you are saying will or will not work.’”

Microsoft accuses Mexican drug cartel La Familia of selling bootleg Office software

Microsoft claims La Familia is selling bootleg copies of Office, and the company is using this to show how counterfeiting and piracy is a more serious problem than many people believe.

It’s been a strange week for Microsoft. It began with Google revealing it had set a honey-trap in order to catch Bing copying its search results. And it’s ending with the revelation that the Mexican drug cartel, La Familia, is selling counterfeit copies of its Office software throughout the country.

The claim came during the Global Congress on Combating Counterfeiting and Piracy in Paris, where David Finn, associate general counsel of Microsoft’s anti-piracy unit, said, “This is the real side, the scary side of counterfeiting and it plagues the world.” Finn suggests a lot of counterfeiting and piracy is linked to organized crime, not just in Mexico but in Asia and right around the world.