Now Google wants to muscle into our travels

As if Google wasn't already having a pretty wide effect on our lives, it now appears that it plans to expand into travel-related matters - in the process of harnessing technology, thereby probably changing the way we travel and arrange it.

The Traveller section of the SMH reports:

"Stand by for a new era of online travel research, where you can get options, prices, images and other key information with one quick search.

Google is experimenting with technology that will allow it to provide much richer search results, eliminating the need for consumers to trawl through multiple sources or cross-reference information from several sites.

Travellers will, for example, be able to look at a map and see actual prices for hotels in a given area (along with images and information on facilities and nearby attractions), with the ability to click through to make a reservation via a third-party booking site.

There will also be a new landscape for flight bookings if US regulators approve Google's purchase of software firm ITA, which specialises in the organisation of flight data."

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Mahler's Prodigal Son

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