NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) - Google data about searches for movies, especially trailers, is an increasingly accurate predictor of box-office performance, a new study from the search giant found.

Movie studios and market researchers already turn to Google to examine search trends that could inform their marketing campaigns and box office tracking. Google's new study, titled "Quantifying Movie Magic with Google Search," underscores the utility of that data, and identifies specific areas studios should look at to improve their marketing.

"As moviegoers are increasingly turning to search to learn more about various titles, we have been able to identify general search patterns that give us insight into awareness and intent levels," Google wrote in a blog post Thursday morning.

Google's study found that the amount potential viewers are searching for a trailer in the four weeks before a movie is highly predictive of its opening weekend box office. The study claims that if you look at trailer search volume while considering the time of year and whether the movie is a franchise, you can predict opening weekend box office with 94 percent accuracy.

Moreover, the study found that if a film is searched for at least 250,000 times more than another film in the week before each opens, it will make $4.3 million more that opening weekend.

Should one want to look beyond the opening weekend, the study found a combination of search ad clicks during the week, previous weekend box office, theater count and Rotten Tomatoes score was quite predictive.

Google's emphasis in the study is that moviegoers now look at more information than over, as searches in the movie category increased 56 percent from 2011 to 2012. Moreover, almost half of moviegoers wait to decide what movie to see until the day they see it.

Market research is still adapting to a digital age where some of the best information about consumers is found online rather than outside a movie theater. Though obviously self-interested, Google has provided research arguing its search data is essential to any studio looking to improve its marketing spend.

"By understanding these search patterns, movie marketers are in a better position to align and adjust their strategies to capture the interest of potential moviegoers," the study concludes.

However, Obama's urging of Xi to stop reported Chinese hacking against the U.S. could be overshadowed by new revelations that Obama's own administration has been secretly collecting information about phone and Internet use. The actions of both China and the U.S. underscore the vast technological powers that governments can tap to gather information covertly from individuals, companies and other governments.

Obama, seeking to keep the matter from trailing him through two days of China meetings, addressed the surveillance programs for the first time Friday morning. He said the efforts strike "the right balance" between security and civil liberties as the U.S. combats terrorism.

"You can't have 100 percent security and then also have 100 percent privacy and zero inconvenience. We're going to have to make some choices as a society," he said during a health care event in Northern California.

Obama was to arrive late in the day at the 200-acre Sunnylands estate on the edge of the Mojave desert. Xi arrived in California Thursday following a trip to Latin America, a region where China is seeking to expand its trade and influence.

The two leaders planned to hold a private meeting in the evening and then take questions from the media. They were also scheduled to hold a private working dinner and resume talks Saturday morning.

Obama told donors at a Democratic fundraiser Thursday that he understands the concerns many Americans have about the potential threat China's rapid rise poses to the U.S.

"The transformation that's taking place in China is extraordinary. And never in the history of humanity have we seen so many people move out of poverty so rapidly," he said. "And yet, when you look at the challenges they face and you look at the challenges we face, I'll take our challenges any day of the week."

U.S. officials see Xi, who took office in March, as a potentially new kind of Chinese leader. He has deeper ties to the U.S. than many of his predecessors and appears more comfortable in public than the last president, Hu Jintao, with whom Obama never developed a strong personal rapport.

Already the White House is encouraged that Xi agreed to the unusual California summit. The talks will be void of the formal pageantry that Chinese leaders often expect during state visits at the White House.

For the U.S., the most pressing matter is China's alleged cyberspying on the American government and on businesses. Obama is expected to warn Xi against continuing such practices, which China publicly denies.

Ahead of the summit, a bipartisan group of lawmakers on Capitol Hill began pushing legislation that would punish countries that launch cyberattacks against the U.S. The bill would authorize the administration to draw up a list of cyberspies, and allow the U.S. to deny or revoke visas to foreign agents guilty of cybercrimes.

Obama will also be looking to build on Xi's apparent impatience with North Korea's nuclear provocations. The U.S. has welcomed Xi's recent calls for North Korea to return to nuclear talks, though it's unclear whether Pyongyang is ready to change its behavior.

Xi is likely to press China's claims of business discrimination in U.S. markets, and to express concern over Obama's efforts to expand U.S. influence in the Asia-Pacific region, which China sees as an attempt to contain its growing power.

Obama and Xi first met before the Chinese leader took office in March. They weren't slated to meet again until September, on the margins of an international economic summit in Russia, but both countries saw a need to move up their first meeting of the year, given the myriad issues that define their relationship.

The China summit kicks off a heavy foreign policy-focused stretch for Obama that includes trips to Europe and Africa later this month. It also comes as the White House grapples not only with the NSA disclosure, but also with controversies over the Internal Revenue Service's targeting of conservative political groups, the Justice Department's seizure of phone records from Associated Press journalists and the continuing investigation into the attack on Americans in Benghazi, Libya.

___

Follow Julie Pace at http://twitter.com/jpaceDC

Alamogordo commissioners decided last week that they will allow Fuel Industries to search the landfill for games, according to The Alamogordo Daily News (http://bit.ly/1aPRzKe). The company has offices in Ontario and Culver City, Calif.

One sought-after cartridge, the E.T. video game, is thought by some to be among the worst video games of all time. Atari paid Steven Spielberg tens of millions of dollars to license the wildly popular 1982 movie's name, and the dud of a game caused the troubled company's worth to sink even further at the time.

The game has since developed a cult following.

The rumored Atari graveyard has long been a fascination of some who consider the commercial flop a part of video game history. It is believed that nine semi-trucks dumped the E.T. game and other Atari toys in the southern New Mexico landfill in 1983.

Alamogordo Commissioner Jason Baldwin says he played the Extra-Terrestrial game and it was horrible. There are listings for the game on eBay that run from under a dollar to more than $30.

Fuel Industries, a multimedia company, has been given six months to search the landfill. The company hopes to document the search.

___

Information from: Alamogordo Daily News, http://www.alamogordonews.com

Donilon has been a key foreign policy adviser to President Barack Obama. But the 58-year-old had been expected to depart sometime this year, with Rice seen as the likely candidate to replace him. Her selection is sure to anger congressional Republicans, who have accused the administration of inconsistency and a cover-up in the Benghazi attacks.

Rice, a close Obama confidante, came under withering criticism from Republicans as part of the investigations into the deadly attack on a U.S. compound in Benghazi. Relying on talking points from the intelligence community, Rice said in television interviews that the attacks were likely spontaneous, which was later proven incorrect.

Obama considered nominating Rice as his second-term secretary of state, but she withdrew amid the GOP criticism, saying she didn't want her confirmation fight to be a distraction for the White House. The president instead nominated John Kerry, who easily won confirmation from his former Senate colleagues.

Rice's new post as national security adviser does not require Senate confirmation. A White House official confirmed the foreign policy personnel changes Wednesday morning ahead of a planned announcement by the president in the afternoon. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the changes before they were publicly announced.

Obama will also name Samantha Power, a human rights expert and former White House adviser, to replace Rice at the United Nations. Power left the White House earlier this year.

Power won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize in general nonfiction for her book "A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide," which examined U.S. foreign policy toward genocide in the 20th century. She is a graduate of Yale University and Harvard Law School.

The White House official said Donilon is expected to stay on the job until early July, after Obama wraps up overseas trips to Europe and Africa, as well as an unusual summit in California later this week with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Donilon has overseen a foreign policy agenda at the White House that put increased emphasis on the U.S. relationship with Asia. He's also played a key role in the administration's counterterrorism strategy, including the raid that led to the death of Osama bin Laden, and in managing the complex U.S. ties with Russia.

Rice, who first started working for Obama during his 2008 presidential campaign, has a close relationship with the president and many of his advisers. She's known for being outspoken on human rights issues and also pushed for a more interventionist strategy in Libya.

Lotus's Kimi Raikkonen, an ex-McLaren driver himself, called Perez an idiot and suggested the youngster needed a punch in the face after a collision between the two at last month's Monaco Grand Prix.

Perez's team mate Jenson Button spoke of dangerous and 'dirty' driving that the 2009 world champion said could have ended the race for both of them after they banged wheels at the Bahrain Grand Prix in April.

McLaren sporting director Sam Michael told reporters on Wednesday, however, that the team were happy with the 23-year-old's behavior.

"Ultimately he's a racing driver and he's just racing. The moves that he did (in Monaco) are all moves that have been done by all of those other drivers at some point in their careers," said the Australian.

"It was obviously hard racing, but that's what Formula One is meant to be about.

"He's a talented driver and the way that he's racing at the moment, McLaren support what he's doing," continued Michael. "We're fully behind Checo as long as he keeps developing."

Michael said Perez had gone through a transition in recent races, showed good technical insight and knew what he wanted from his engineers.

Perez will be starting his seventh race for McLaren in Canada this weekend after moving from Sauber at the end of last year as replacement for departed 2008 champion Lewis Hamilton, now with Mercedes.

The Mexican has scored points three times this season, with sixth place in Bahrain his best so far for a team struggling to improve their car.

"Jenson is a world champion and a hard guy to match and Sergio is doing pretty well against him," said Michael.

(Reporting by Alan Baldwin; Editing by John Mehaffey)

In an impromptu hearing, Shoffner acknowledged taking a series of $6,000 cash payments at times delivered in a pie box from a broker who is cooperating with federal investigators. She told U.S. District Judge Leon Holmes, however, that she didn't deliberately direct an increasing share of the state's bond business to the broker.

Shoffner, 68, faced charges of attempt and conspiracy to commit extortion under color of official right under the Hobbs Act, a federal law often used to prosecute public officials for accepting bribes. Those charges carry maximum penalties of 20 years in prison and up to a $250,000 fine.

She was set to plead guilty Friday to a similar charge until Holmes asked her what she had done.

"There were just some questions asked that I had problems with. I'm just so sorry this is all happening," Shoffner told reporters after the hearing. "I want to tell the people of Arkansas that I apologize. But there were some questions asked that I wasn't comfortable with."

When Holmes asked Shoffner if she accepted payments from the broker, she responded: "Yes, but it was offered. I didn't demand it." Shoffner also told the judge the payments were not related to her decisions as treasurer.

Under plea bargains, defendants are required to admit key elements of crimes. Holmes cautioned Shoffner to be truthful.

"Before I would accept it, I would have to know you're admitting to all of the elements the government would have to prove in order to convict you," Holmes told Shoffner. "I believe one of those elements is that you intended to be influenced by this money, that it had something to do with the decisions you were making as treasurer. If you deny that, which you have now under oath, then I cannot accept your guilty plea."

Prosecutors had said after her May 18 arrest that Shoffner steered more business to the broker because of the payments the ex-treasurer received.

After the hearing, U.S. Attorney Chris Thyer said he was surprised the plea deal fell through. Thyer said he will seek an indictment against the former treasurer with additional charges.

"At one level I'm certainly disappointed the plea didn't go through because I certainly anticipated that it would," Thyer said. "On another level, I'm not disappointed. I truly believe that everyone is entitled to a trial. If that's what this case calls for, that's what we intend to do and that's have a trial."

Shoffner's attorney, Chuck Banks, also said he didn't expect the plea to fall apart.

"I know she's very embarrassed about all this, but this is an opportunity for her to continue to exercise her constitutional right to test the proof," Banks said.

An FBI affidavit filed in federal court alleges that a broker unidentified in court documents would roll up cash in $6,000 increments and have it delivered to Shoffner's office every six months. At least two of the payments were delivered in a pie box with a pie. The broker "recognized his/her bond business with the state grew because of the payments," the affidavit said.

The payments were made after Shoffner asked the broker for $1,000 a month to pay her rent in Little Rock, according to the affidavit. The document said the broker was granted immunity in exchange for his or her cooperation.

Legislative auditors last year questioned Shoffner's selling of bonds before they matured, a practice that they said cost the state more than $434,000 worth of earnings.

Shoffner was arrested at her home in Newport after the broker agreed to record the meeting and bring $6,000 in a pie box, according to the affidavit. FBI agents executed a search warrant and found the cash inside a cigarette package in Shoffner's kitchen. Shoffner admitted that she accepted the payments from the broker, the FBI said in its affidavit.

Shoffner, a Democrat, was first elected treasurer in 2006 and won a second term in 2010. Facing pressure from fellow Democrats as well as Republicans who threatened impeachment proceedings if she didn't resign, Shoffner stepped down last week.

Beebe on Wednesday appointed former Legislative Auditor Charles Robinson to serve the remainder of Shoffner's term, which ends in January 2015. Robinson is barred from running for the post next year since he was appointed to it.

(Reuters) - Satellite operator DirecTV and two other bidders have offered more than $1 billion apiece to buy Hulu, a source with knowledge of the bidding process said on Friday, increasing the likelihood that owners News Corp and Walt Disney Co will be able to shed the video streaming service they failed to sell in 2011.

Hulu board members, who are being advised by Guggenheim Partners on the auction, fielded at least seven buyout offers last week, the source said.

That number will be whittled down in the next two or three weeks, the source told Reuters on condition of anonymity because the process was private.

It was unclear which two other bidders offered $1 billion for Hulu. The service has more than 4 million subscribers and generates revenue of about $700 million through subscriptions and a free ad-supported service.

The proposed price tag heightens the likelihood that News Corp and Disney will find an acceptable offer price, which was the sticking point of the 2011 round of buyout negotiations.

DirecTV spokesman Darris Gringeri declined to comment, as did Meredith Kendall, a spokeswoman for Hulu. Bloomberg first reported the news on Friday.

Sources have said the other bidders are Yahoo, former News Corp president Peter Chernin, private equity firm KKR, cable operator Time Warner Cable, Guggenheim Digital, and Silver Lake Management and talent agency William Morris Endeavor Entertainment in a joint bid.

Cable company Comcast is the third owner of Hulu alongside News Corp and Disney, but is precluded from an operational role as a condition imposed on it upon its acquisition of NBC Universal in 2011.

(Reporting By Ronald Grover and Liana B. Baker; Editing by Toni Reinhold)

(Reuters) - Target Corpcut its full-year profit forecast on Wednesday while turning in a weak first quarter with disappointing sales, as a chilly start to spring kept shoppers from buying seasonal items like clothing.

Target warned in April its first-quarter results would be weaker than anticipated, and its performance was even worse than revised Wall Street expectations due to the cool weather and the impact of higher payroll taxes on spending.

Shares of Target fell 3.6 percent to $68.70.

First-quarter sales at stores open at least a year fell 0.6 percent, while analysts targeted a 0.03 percent decline, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. Back in April, Target forecast same-store sales would be about flat versus its previous outlook of flat to up 2 percent.

"This is Target's weakest quarterly same-store sales performance since the Great Recession year of 2009," said Sandy Skrovan, U.S. research director at Planet Retail.

The last time Target's quarterly same-store sales fell was in the third quarter of 2009, when it posted a decline of 1.6 percent.

This year, shoppers held off buying spring merchandise such as clothing, fans and garden supplies as a chilly start to the season left them little reason to splurge.

"Across the board things were disappointing for a lot of retailers," Skrovan said.

The U.S. economy has been somewhat resilient. Core U.S. retail sales, which strip out automobiles, gasoline and building materials, rose 0.5 percent in April, after an upwardly revised 0.1 percent gain in March.

The end of a 2 percent payroll tax cut took effect on January 1 and the smaller paychecks have made some consumers less willing to spend. Still, declining gasoline prices have offset some of the drag on household income.

"While weather was a clear negative in (the first quarter), the revised view suggests that underlying pressure on moderate income consumer spending remains," said Bernstein Research analyst Colin McGranahan.

The pressure is not limited to Target. Last week, Wal-Mart Stores Incposted an unexpected 1.4 percent decline in same-store sales at its Walmart U.S. unit, while Kohl's Corpposted a 1.9 percent decline in same-store sales. And on Wednesday, Lowe's Cos Increported weaker-than-expected quarterly profit, hurt by the chilly weather as well as competition from larger rival Home Depot Inc .

PROFIT DOWN

Target earned $498 million, or 77 cents per share, in the first quarter ended on May 4, compared with a profit of $697 million, or $1.04 per share, a year earlier.

Including the effects from opening Canadian stores, but excluding losses related to the early retirement of debt and gains from the sale of its credit card business, Target earned 82 cents per share. On that basis, analysts looked for 85 cents per share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Total sales rose 1 percent to $16.71 billion, while analysts expected $16.78 billion in revenue.

The number of transactions in stores open at least a year fell 1.9 percent. Shoppers spent more overall and bought more items, but the selling price per unit was down, suggesting lower-priced items like groceries were selling well, Skrovan said.

Also, more shoppers took advantage of the 5 percent discount offered to Target's REDcard holders. It said 17.1 percent of sales in its stores were paid for with REDcard credit and debit cards, versus 11.6 percent a year ago.

Target said its first 24 Canadian stores, opened in March, generated $86 million in sales in the quarter. The company, which plans to have 124 stores in Canada by the end of the year, said costs related to the Canadian launch reduced earnings by 24 cents per share in the first quarter.

Target now expects adjusted earnings of $4.70 to $4.90 per share this year, down from its April forecast of $4.85 to $5.05.

(Reporting by Jessica Wohl in Chicago; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)

LONDON (Reuters) - AstraZeneca is closing in on a site for its new $500 million home in Cambridge, with a biomedical park just south of the English city the most likely site, property industry sources said.

Moving research and global headquarters to Cambridge, with minimal disruption, is a key test for new Chief Executive Pascal Soriot as he tries to change the drugmaker's culture and puts ground-breaking science at the center of its activities.

The move to the university city, involving nearly 2,000 jobs, is the centerpiece of a $2.3 billion restructuring plan unveiled by Soriot in March, which also includes a 10 percent cut in overall staff numbers by 2016.

An AstraZeneca spokeswoman said on Monday that the drugmaker was still considering its options, adding an update on the final location was likely in the next couple of months.

Two property industry insiders familiar with the deal said the Cambridge Biomedical Campus (CBC) was the frontrunner. The other option is Granta Park, another research park outside Cambridge where AstraZeneca's MedImmune unit is already located.

Situated two miles from central Cambridge, the CBC is an extension of a site occupied by the world-famous Addenbrooke's Hospital that has been developed in conjunction with the University of Cambridge and the Medical Research Council.

With outline planning consent for 70 acres to accommodate up to 2.3 million square feet of new buildings, there is plenty of room for the purpose-built global research center and corporate headquarters that AstraZeneca plans to establish by 2016 at cost of around 330 million pounds ($500 million).

CBC Project Director Jeanette Walker said the park was in advanced talks with several major companies.

"We are hoping to close a number of discussions this summer that would see building start early next year for a number of potential occupiers," she told Reuters, while declining to identify specific companies.

The new AstraZeneca facility could eventually reach 750,000 square feet, although not all that would be delivered in 2016, according to one property industry source.

RELOCATION INCENTIVES

A smooth transition to the new site is crucial for AstraZeneca, which is in a race to develop new drugs and strike external deals to replenish its medicine chest as old blockbusters lose patent protection, sapping sales.

Menelas Pangalos, the group's head of innovative medicines, said the drugmaker would offer enticing packages to make sure key scientific staff relocated to Cambridge.

"We are going to have very aggressive retention and relocation plans. We have time to plan the move and make it as flexible and as attractive as possible for people," he said.

"Over the next month or two we should be able to talk about that in a lot more detail."

Many AstraZeneca scientists were shocked by the decision two months ago to shutter the company's Alderley Park facility in northwest England, for many years a hub of the group's research.

The closure, while offset by the Cambridge investment, was also a blow to the British government. Alderley Park lies within the Cheshire parliamentary constituency of finance minister George Osborne.

AstraZeneca aims to tap into an environment of world-class academic and clinical life sciences research in its new home in Cambridge. In addition to ready access to hospital clinicians, its researchers will also be rubbing shoulders with top academics.

Cambridge's Laboratory of Molecular Biology - home to 13 Nobel Prize winners over the years - has also moved to a new CBC facility that will be formally opened by Queen Elizabeth II on Thursday.

"We've lost some of our scientific confidence," Soriot complained earlier this year, when setting out his major overhaul for AstraZeneca.

Whether the big move will help the drugmaker regain its swagger in drug development remains to be seen. The relocation will only be completed in 2016 and the fruits of future research collaboration with its new neighbors are even further off.

(Editing by Mark Potter)

A hearing before the U.S. House of Representatives' Science, Space and Technology Committee is scheduled for 2 p.m. EST, and will feature astronomers known for their expertise in moon and , as well as a former NASA official and a co-founder of The Planetary Society, a nonprofit dedicated to space exploration.

President Obama has challenged NASA toby the mid 2030s, with an earlier goal of landing on an asteroid in the 2020s. Scientists say both ambitions are challenging, and will require new technologies as well as steady funding to come to fruition.

The space agency has already begun work on a new rocket called the Space Launch System (SLS) and a new crew capsule called Orion to transport astronauts to deep space. More work will be needed on additional technologies, such as improved shielding from space radiation, and advanced navigation and communications equipment, as well.

A manned mission to Mars was the topic of a recent conference in Washington, D.C. called the Humans 2 Mars Summit. There, NASA administrator Charlie Bolden reaffirmed the agency's commitment to a .

"Interest in sending humans to Mars I think has never been higher," Bolden said May 6. "We now stand on the precipice of a second opportunity to press forward to what I think is man's destiny to step onto another planet."

Witnesses presenting at Tuesday's Congressional hearing will include:

The panel is organized by the Subcommittee on Space, and will be held at the 2318 Rayburn House Office Building. You can watch the broadcast live on SPACE.com, or directly.

Follow Clara Moskowitz onand. Follow us,and. Original article onSPACE.com.