Google Travel? Company rumored to be entering the airfare search business

Watch out Orbitz and Expedia, Google wants a piece of the travel turf. The ambitious search engine company is "in talks" to fork over $1 billion for ITA Software, which makes the same software that Bing and Kayak use to track airfares online, according to USA Today.

Obviously, the talk has the travel industry abuzz. The entrance of a behemoth like Google would bring tough name-brand competition to the business of hunting down budget-priced plane tickets. With the software, Google would be able to offer the same point-and-click fare searches when users punch in destinations and dates of departure. Currently, such a search on Google results in links to other booking sites.