It's well worth clicking through to the video linked from the article. The illusion is very simple and very convincing; it's a simple matter of perspective, but even after seeing how it works I can't make myself see it "right".
I just don't know if I'd have the same problem if it wasn't a video but I had the subject right in front of me. But since it won a illusion prize, I guess my answer is already there.
For whatever reason, Japanese vision researchers seem to do this sort of thing a lot. At the ex-ex-day job, where we had a robot vision lab, I'd get a "Check out this demo from X at Y university" email at least twice a week.
I wonder if you could use this technique in marketing. Where you would have a sign that showed different things, depending on how far away you are standing.
Those are great, but I can't look at too many in succession. (Maybe a good rating system for optical illusions would be the number seizures induced per thousand epileptics.)
