In 2011, researchers from China and Hong Kong showed how it might be done with laser beams of a specific shape - and the US space agency Nasa has even funded a study to examine how the technique might help with manipulating samples in space.

BBC: Star Trek style 'tractor beam' created by scientists

Clarke's "ideas" began taking shape when - as a civil servant before the war - he started writing tales about outer space.

BBC: Legendary science fiction writer Arthur C Clarke at 80

This movement now makes U.S. landfall in Williamsburg (which has been trendy even longer than Scandinavia), in the shape of Aska, a small restaurant and bar in a space that also encompasses an art-and-design studio.

NEWYORKER: Aska

And since the Apple screen is now taller but no wider, the usability of the extra space is very much in the to-be-determined category (the screen shape is more vertical or oblong depending on how you are holding the phone, closer to a widescreen TV than before).

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