Google announced on Thursday that it is acquiring flight information software company ITA for $700 million in cash. Based in Cambridge, ITA mines flight data and presents it in a polished form suitable for online viewing. Google will add to its repertoire of services by integrating this flight data into its online search engine. Google also states that it will honor all service agreements with ITA’s current customers which include Kayak, Orbitz, and Bing. Despite this assurance of openness, Google now owns a big chunk of the online travel business, so expect the deal to get a close look from regulators.

Read

Last night we broke the story that Google would be teaming with a number of well known artists to launch a promotion for its Music Onebox search, which was releasedlast week. Turns out, it’s launching a bit sooner than we thought: beginning tonight a number of well known artists will be offering exclusive songs and free downloads through Google’s Music search. To get the freebies and exclusives, simply run a Google query for the artist’s name (the album name works too in some cases).

One clarification: while these songs are being presented and promoted on Google, they’ll also be available on the site that’s actually streaming the songs — be it MySpace or Lala. In MySpace’s case the songs could also be potentially be surfaced on other search engines, though it sounds like artists will be asking their fans to search for them on Google as part of the promotion.

Included among artists giving away free MP3s as part of the promotion are:
Tim McGraw
Phoenix
Major Lazer
Mos Def
Zee Avi

And the following exclusives are being showcased on Google as well:

AFI – “Torch Song (Demo From Crash Love Sessions)”
– Search on Google for “AFI”

Arctic Monkeys – “Catapult”
– Search on Google for “Arctic Monkeys”

Bon Jovi – “We Weren’t Born To Follow [Acoustic Version] (Recorded Live From Inside The Actor’s Studio)”
Dead by Sunrise – “Let Down [Live]”
Green Day – “Know Your Enemy [Live In Tokyo]”
Kings of Leon – “Crawl (Miike Snow Remix)”
Lady Gaga – “Paparazzi (David Aude Remix)”
Linkin Park – “New Divide [Live]”
Luke Bryan – “Better Than My Heart”
Norah Jones – “Young Blood”
One Republic – “All The Right Moves (Live)”
Paramore – “Where The Lines Overlap [Acoustic Version]”
Snoop Dogg – “Upside Down (Featuring Nipsey Hussle)”
The Fray – “Be The One (Demo Version)”
Trey Songz – ” LOL [feat. Gucci Mane & Soulja Boy Tell 'Em] [Logan deGaulle Remix]”
Weezer – “(If You’re Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To (Live In Kansas City)”
Zac Brown Band – “Chicken Fried [Live From Bonnaroo]”

Four ways this free service can put advanced telephony features within reach

by Tony Bradley, PC World

Editor’s Note: The following article is reprinted from the Biz Feed blog at PCWorld.com.

Google Voice has been the subject of controversy for all the wrong reasons since its availability was expanded earlier this year. Even with limited availability, the service has reached almost 1.5 million users, and half of them reportedly use it daily.

The reason for its popularity isn’t hard to see. Google Voice provides a plethora of call handling features at a price that can’t be beat: free. For small and medium businesses, Google Voice is an opportunity to use advanced call management features typically reserved for expensive voice solutions in larger enterprises.

Large companies have IP-PBX’s and dedicated voice administrators to manage it, or they have made the move to unified communications and have a voice environment built around Microsoft or Cisco or some other unified communications vendor. Small and medium businesses don’t have the financial or personnel resources for those solutions though. Let’s look at how smaller businesses can put Google Voice to work:

1. Simultaneous Ring
Google Voice allows you to have an incoming call to the Google Voice number simultaneously ring on multiple phones. On an individual basis, calls could ring an office desk phone and a mobile phone at the same time to ensure important calls reach you no matter where you are.

Businesses can put this feature to use though as a form of departmental call routing. You can use a Google Voice number for a department, such as sales, or customer service, and have the Google Voice number simultaneously ring the desk phones of all of the people in the department so that customers get an efficient response.

2. Custom Call Greeting and Routing
You can set up Groups in Google Voice and establish unique call management options for each group. A sales department can use this function to set up different groups for each salesperson. Incoming calls that are associated with a sales person’s group can be routed to go only to the designated user’s desk and mobile phone, and if the call goes to voicemail it can have a custom message from the individual sales person rather than a generic greeting.

Using a Google Voice number in this way, all customers can dial one number to reach the sales department, but existing customers will be routed to their designated sales person, while calls from new and potential customers would be managed using the default settings to simultaneously ring the whole department.

3. Voicemail by E-mail
When a new voicemail is received in Google Voice can send the voicemail to an e-mail address and/or transcribe the audio into the text of an e-mail message. You can configure Google Voice to deliver the voicemail messages to an e-mail group or distribution list address so that all of the members of the department will receive the voicemail.

Having the voicemail sent to email at all will help ensure it is not overlooked entirely, and distributing the message to a group can improve the efficiency with which the department responds to customer inquiries and lead to significantly higher customer satisfaction.

4. Call Screening
You can configure Google Voice to announce incoming calls to you before you decide whether or not you want to accept the call. When the phone rings and you answer you are not connected immediately with the caller. Google Voice will identify the source of the call at which point you can choose whether to accept it or pass it to voicemail.

This function can be used by an individual or a team to reduce wasted time and improve productivity. If you are in the middle of a project, important calls can still be taken, while other calls can be sent to voicemail so that you can stay focused on more productive tasks.

Google recently announced a new option, a sort of Google Voice Lite, that allows you to use some Google Voice features while maintaining your existing number, but the functions I listed above require the standard Google Voice account. Google Voice is not available to the general public just yet, but if you know a friend or a friend that has Google Voice you might be able to get an invite.

Tony Bradley is an information security and unified communications expert with more than a decade of enterprise IT experience. He tweets as @PCSecurityNews and provides tips, advice and reviews on information security and unified communications technologies on his site at tonybradley.com.

Get lost? Do you? Well, yet another bright young designer from the U.K is developing a system that will have tag and name exactly what your staring at. Google Vision is a conceptual product developed by Callum Peden, for the worlds favorite search engine. The product provides the user with a truly unique information hub by combining GPS, OLED technology and advanced image recognition in the form of a retractable screen device.
The Global Positioning System will see the end of wondering the streets asking for directions and the small roller ball will allow for easy navigation of the flexible screen. Brilliant for identifying landmarks whilst on holidays, Google vision acts as  a personal; tour guide.

As well as this, advanced image recognition will mean Google Vision can target well known landmarks. Then using the increased coverage of wireless internet, provide the user with information on their surroundings wherever they may be.