Google said Thursday it has signed an agreement to acquire ITA for $700 million in cash, subject to adjustments. ITA is a Boston-based software company specializing in organizing airline data, including flight times, availability and prices.

Google launched a grandparent's guide to Google Chat to help the older generation keep in touch with the more tech savvy grandchildren and friends. The YouTube video explains the required equipment--microphone and camera--and steps to start talking online. Jason Toff, Google grandson of Evelyn and Ida, tells us after your grandma is all set up, "take a screenshot of you video chatting with her and email it to grammy324@gmail.com to share it with us." The first 100 people to do so will get a T-shirt, printable guide and VHS of the video, Toff writes "because if your grandma’s …

Staples says Steven Fund is joining the company as SVP/ Global Brand Marketing, a new position, reporting to Mike Miles, Staples president/COO. Fund was previously global marketing director at Procter & Gamble's Gillette Global Business Unit, responsible for the Fusion and Mach3 brands, and has also worked at Lycos, Inc., Pepsi-Cola Co. and McKinsey & Company. ##

Nielsen is poised to announce a breakthrough in its local TV ratings processing system that will enable it to add a fourth-stream, and that it will bring "live-only" ratings back for local advertiser, agency and TV station clients, effective with the start of the 2010-11 TV season. Details will be unveiled later today, but it is expected retroactively to include all of the live-only ratings data that has been omitted since Nielsen scrapped that ratings stream earlier this year.

Chevrolet had planned to introduce its forthcoming electric car, the Volt, in just three markets initially. But demand has been so great that the company has added New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Texas as introductory markets for the car. The automaker’s Chairman Ed Whitacre broke the news in Austin, Texas on Thursday at a luncheon for the city’s chamber of commerce. During his keynote speech he also announced that the company is going to battle consumers’ “range anxiety” – the fear that driving an electric car means risking getting stuck somewhere with a dead battery under the hood. …

In another sign pointing to continuing recovery for the restaurant industry, 25% of consumers surveyed during May and June by Market Force Information indicated that they plan to increase their eating out occasions over the next three months. This represents a significant jump in consumer confidence in comparison with Market Force's December '09 dining preferences/trends survey, when just 5% of consumers indicated intentions to eat out more often in the coming months. In addition, just 8% of consumers are now indicating that fear about the economy will cause them to eat out less often in coming months. Last …

Ad celeb Alex Bogusky is leaving the holding company to pursue efforts outside the ad world, Ad Age is reporting this morning. “Bogusky began his career as a creative in the '80s, and is the founding partner of Crispin Porter & Bogusky, which under his direction became one of the country's most talked-about -- at times lauded and hated in equal measure -- shops.”