Researchers at the Swinburne University of Technology overcome a law of optical science to develop technology boosting DVD storage capacity-- a change in writing lasers boosts DVD storage capacity from 4.7GB to up to 1 petabyte.

The technology enables "three-dimensional optical beam lithography at nine nanometres" and acts as a turnaround to Abbe's Limit, the law discovered in 1873 by Ernst Abbe.

Abbe's Limit states light beam focused by a lens cannot produce a focal spot smaller than half of the wavelength (or 500nm) for visible light. It allowed for the development of  of modern optical microscopy, but set a barrier for scientists working in the nanometer scale.

“The new technique produces a focal spot that is 1/10000 of a human hair, enabling more data to be written to disc,” Swinburne Centre for Micro-Photonics director Professor Min Gu says.

Starting at $1399, Microsoft’s Surface Duo opens into the thinnest mobile device on the market and connects two PixelSense™ Fusion Displays to create one expansive 8.1-inch screen.

With Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 and dimensions of 145.2 mm (H) x 93.3 mm (W) x 9.9 mm (T at hinge), there’s room for an eSIM5 and one Nano SIM. It runs on Android 10.

But don’t call it a smartphone. Microsoft really, really wants to create a new category of mobile device-- that is, a popular new category.

“We designed Surface Duo for people who want to get more done with the device in their pocket. Our internal research shows that 3 out of 4 people report struggling to complete complex tasks while away from their computer. That’s because smartphones with a single screen aren’t designed for you to easily do multiple things at once,” says Panos Panay, Chief Product Officer for Windows + Devices,\.

“Think about it. You continually have to switch between apps to get even the most essential things done – breaking focus, breaking flow. Just like using two monitors at your desk, having two distinct screens lets you open up two apps side by side…”

He goes on “..as we look ahead to the next wave of mobile productivity and creativity, we see an opportunity to create something new with Surface Duo-- not to reinvent the phone, but to inspire people to rethink how they want to use the device in their pocket.”

Folded up, the Duo is 9.9 mm thick. Unfold and the Surface Duo’s 360-degree hinge allows you to use each screen individually or together, across a variety of modes. Most smartphones sport a tall, pocket-wide size but Microsoft went wider--for an aspect ratio more similar to a laptop or monitor. Like your old iPhone, Duo its slip showing with bezel above and below the screen.

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen died on Monday in Seattle, age 65. His family says it was due to complication of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, a disease Allen said he was being treated for earlier this month.

Born in 21 January 1953, Allen was a childhood friend of Bill Gates. The two founded Microsoft back in 1975. Allen claimed he was the one to come up with the name "Micro-Soft," and was instrumental in buying what was to become MS-DOS from a Seattle programmer. Allen left Microsoft in 1983 after learning he was suffering from Hodgkin's lymphoma, and remained a member of the board until 2000. In 2009 he started receiving treatment for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, before he went into remission. However the disease returned on October 2018.

Nvidia follows on the leak of the Shield TV Pro with the announcement of two Shield products-- the next-generation Shield TV and the aforementioned Shield TV Pro, both featuring the Tegra X1+ processor.

“These new models provide a big step up for Shield, which has consistently delivered groundbreaking innovations in the living room since its introduction 5 years ago,” the company claims. “They deliver unquestionably best-in-class entertainment, supported by Dolby Atmos, Dolby Vision and our breakthroughs in using AI to improve video streaming playback.”

As mentioned earlier, the 2019 Shield TV comes in two flavours. The regular model is designed to be be as slim as possible, allowing users to hide it behind entertainment systems. It has gigabit ethernet and dual-band wifi for "lightning fast" connectivity, and includes 2GB RAM and 8GB storage (expandable via microSD slot). On the other hand the Pro model is based on the previous Shield TV design, and carries 3GB RAM, 16GB storage and x2 USB ports, allowing users to run a Plex media server and connect external storage or other USB devices.