I haven't tried it but I think you get the same effect by setting the width and height of the image and using a spinner for the background of an enclosing div.
Not to mention that the markup and code for the jQuery solution is incredibly ugly in comparison.
Two thoughts immediately rushed through my head:
1) Netscape Navigator did this 15 years ago, although not nearly as cool
2) Why did he just show a screenshot? Couldn't he have given, you know, a link?
Me too, but then reading what he's doing I realized that this technique could definitely give a page an extra bit of polish that could really make a big subconscious effect on users precisely because it's such an unexplored area. I imagine seeing this done the first time I might think I was looking at a Flash site.
The page layout might break if you do not set a width and a height. That problem at least can be solved fairly easily.
Hello, I'm the post author, the reason I didn't give a link was because the site shown was a closed beta. It is open to the public now so check it out at http://community.wacom.com