Google Now, the predictive assistant bundled with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean has just received a powerful shot in its arm which brings a variety of significant enhancements to its existing feature set, as well as adds some new goodies and cards to it.

The new features focus on making travel easier, with Google Now automatically telling you what the weather is going to be like at your destination. Handy feature to have, so that you don’t forget to pack those warm clothes. And once you arrive at the airport, ready to fly, Google Now will even pull up your boarding pass automatically!

The boarding pass feature though, only works if you’re flying United Airlines, for now, but given the significance of the feature, it shouldn’t be long before other carriers add support as well.

Once you have landed at your destination, Google Now will suggest activities, local web sites as well as provide information on stuff that you can do in the new place. All of these features would be presented via new cards which will automatically show up at relevant times.

The Voice Search also gets a new update, and you can now identify a track that may be playing by simply saying “What’s this song?”. You can also find out more information about a product in a supermarket by simple telling Google Now to scan its barcode, and even post an update to your Google+ account with just your voice.

While these are nice additions, timed well before the holidays, they also indicate how serious Google may be getting about making the predictive search offering more robust and user-friendly. If you though Google Web Search was intrusive, by providing answers or suggestions even before you asked the question, Google Now is set to take predictive search to a whole new level with these new additions.