Unity Technologies, the San Francisco company behind the eponymous multi-platform game development platform, has now closed its first round of funding. The Series A financing was led by Sequoia Capital like we reported last week and apparently also included some Silicon Valley notables like David Gardner, the CEO of Atari, and Diane Greene, founder and former CEO of VMware.

Unity combines a development platform with a 3D game engine in a software package that enables high performance 3D interactive content for Web, Mac, PC, iPhone and Nintendo Wii games. The platform is currently used in games like Tiger Woods PGA Tour Online by ElA, the Quest for R2D2 by LEGO and FusionFall by Cartoon Networks.

Earlier this year, Unity for iPhone was released and the company says more than 325 games are using its engine to power their iPhone games today.

The company has recently moved its home base from Copenhagen, where it has been operating for years, to San Francisco, though its core development team is still in Copenhagen.

Roelof Botha, partner at Sequoia Capital, and Greene will be joining the board of directors.

We know you can find an occasional bargain on Craigslist, but this takes the biscuit: documents actually detailing a merger between Apple and Nintendo. We knew Nintendo and Apple were up to something¡ªhas no one else noticed all the plastic white styled similarities? C’mon you guys, it’s just makes sense! Now, we’re off to put in our bid. Expect some seriously breaking news soon. [Kotaku]

Source: gawker.com

Craigslist to make an estimated $80 million this year and could handily exceed that and compete better against rivals if it raised some fees, report says.

nWatch as General Cartwright, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (and apparently Jack Bauer's older brother) shows how the Aegis missile launches and successfully destroys the rogue spy satellite. This is a huge success for the Pentagon and the anti-missiles system that was first conceived in the mid-80s as part of President Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative. Specially after many critics were saying it wasn't going to work.

The mission was simple. At 10:26PM EST, a standard missile 3 carrying a kinetic warhead was launched northwest of Hawaii from the USS Lake Eire, a Ticonderoga Class missile defense cruiser. 24 minutes later, at 10:50, the Joint Space Operations Center at the Vandenberg Air Force base confirmed the breakup of the satellite at 153 nautical miles above the Earth from a direct hit.

While they can't confirm completely the destruction of the tank, which was needed to release the toxic fuel that may have posed a danger to us Earthlings, the Pentagon has declared the mission a complete success and with good reason. Some experts criticized the plan as probable failure during the past days, with the argument that the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense, part of the Ballistic Missile Defense System being developed by the US Missile Defense Agency, wasn't designed to do this and, therefore, it wasn't going to be able to hit the target and destroy it effectively.

Their reasons were three: first, the kinetic warhead, launched in a long range standard missile 3, a isn't designed to destroy targets by explosion but by the sheer force of multiple impacts. While this is enough to destroy other incoming missiles, the critics said that this wasn't going to be enough to destroy the much larger satellite. Second was the speed of the target, which was traveling at double the speed of the missiles which are the usual target of the Aegis. And third, the tracking system, which wasn't originally designed to operate in high orbits.

The video, however, shows that the direct kinetic hit has completely obliterated its target. Now the world can rest at peace. Until A542B, that asteroid ten times bigger than Texas, finally arrives.

A brand new Japanese warship that apparently has the country's latest and greatest radar system, was http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=1abecf9b-545e-476f-adc2-efcb375ff14b&k=79469" target="_new">unable to spot a fishing boat in its path, leading to a collision and two missing fishermen. This is raising all sorts of questions about the quality of the radar system, but some are saying that the collision was really due to human error and that the radar system is designed more to watch out for missiles in the air, rather than ships below it. That's a fair enough response, but does point out that vulnerabilities come from all directions — and you can make the best system in the world, but if it's looking for the wrong thing, it won't stop something bad from getting through. It does seem rather ironic to set this ship up to be the best in the world at spotting threats from the sky — and forget to include a decent system to find threats right next to it in the sea.