Re: How new is this idea?
it might be possible to craft two chunks of psudo-random and get something much closer to an actual random number
No, that is not possible, assuming you're talking about a deterministic procedure and causality is still in force.
What is possible is combining two low-quality sources into a less-biased, less-predictable one. The goal is to do so with poor (low min-entropy) sources, in a practical fashion (i.e. while preserving as much entropy as possible, minimizing bias, using reasonable resources, etc). This paper represents a significant advance in that area.