It's not a new technology, Jackdaw, in fact it's been around for 100 years or so - essentially it brings together two technologies.
As you may well know, gas sits down in the cells of the rock (think of a sponge and how it holds water), usually shales - the shale has a mud layer on top that prevents the gas leaking out. First thinng to determine is the geology for the rock structure and the angles of the sedimentary layers....
The first part of the actual process is to drill down to where the interesting rocks are and then 'horizontal' drilling is used to pass up the seam of shale and the operators are amazingly skilled at being able to steer the drill head.
This will release some gas but the interesting bit is the hydraulics now used, a small charge of explosive used to 'fracture' the shale and duly help release more gas. The gas then passes up the installed casing to the well head and is then cleaned if there happens to be sulphur present - and then off into the national grid - but sometimes it can be liquified. So fracking is a blend of fracturing and cracking - it was termed by the oil geophysicist George Mitchell who brought these two processes together, the success of it being the ability to drill at 360 and run the seams to the max. Hope this helps.