I don't think this is a big mystery wireless technology.. I assume what they did is tweaking the 802.11 MAC-layer, so it may actually use the same hardware as in the N900. The reasons for my assumption are the following:

a) They almost certainly use the 2.4GHz band (same as 2.4GHz 802.11 and bluetooth), anything else doesn't make sense if you want to sell your technology worldwide.

b) The 802.11 MAC layer has quite a bit of overhead from ACK messages etc. For this application the sender and transmitter are very close, so you have a high SNR and low bit error rate, i.e., few lost packets and therefore few retransmissions. Being close also allows you to tweak the timeouts in the 802.11 MAC layer (they are designed for a range of 100m or something). They could also make more fundamental changes, such as adding some kind of streaming transfer mode, which would further increase the throughput for applications like the one shown.

These are just my 2 cents.. as usual Engadget doesn't really have a clue about the technology they are writing about.