Weekly high-tech hot topics in the blogs: iPhone 4 antenna problems, Kin phones canceled, Google acquires ITA, Windows 8

Hot topics in the tech blogs for the week ending July 2 include Microsoft pulling the plug on its Kin phones, the most successful product launch in Apple's history is plagued by ongoing troubles with the newly-designed antenna, plans for Microsoft's Windows 8 are leaked, and Google rethinks its strategy in China and gets into the flight data organization business.

Microsoft kills Kin series phones
After just a few very short months on the shelves, Microsoft announced it was killing its Kin series phones. The Sharp-manufactured phones were targeted at young, social networking-addicted consumers and ran a cut-down version of Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 software.

iPhone 4 sales reports, Verizon rumors
This week Apple announced it had broken all its previous records to sell over 1.7 million iPhone 4's in just three days. It is the most successful product to be launched in Apple's history, despite blogger's (and consumer's) grievances with the new iPhone 4 antenna system. In other iPhone news, Bloomberg added to the ongoing Apple-Verizon rumor mill this week with their article titled, "Verizon Wireless Said to Start Offering IPhone in January".

Consumers take legal action over iPhone antenna, Apple recruits antenna engineers
Apple's iPhone 4 antenna problems escalated into "Death Grip hysteria" this week as law firms encouraged disgruntled consumers to join a class action lawsuit against the company. Meanwhile bloggers spotted job ads for "antenna engineers" at Apple and an email exchange between "Steve Jobs" and an angry consumer made headlines around the web. Apple PR later claimed "it was not Steve Jobs in the email exchange."

Windows 8 plans leaked
An Italian blog stumbled upon slides showing Microsoft's future plans for their Windows 8 OS this week and the news quickly spread through the English-language blogs. The slides showed "everything from customer target audiences to the Windows 8 developer market to the Windows 8 product cycle and much, much more" reported a Microsoft-centric blog called Microsoft Kitchen.

Google rethinks China strategy, launches into cheap flights search, is rumored to be building new social network
As usual it's been a busy week for Google. The company decided to rethink their approach to filtering web results in China and stopped automatically redirecting Chinese users to Google's Hong Kong site. Rumors started flowing about a Google-made social networking service, and on Friday the company announced it had acquired ITA, a company specializing in "organizing airline data, including flight times, availability and prices." Google plans to use the acquisition to develop flight search tools that make it easier for consumers to find cheap flights.