>The precise manipulations change the directions light rays are reflected off of the surface in a manner similar to changing the angles of millions of tiny facets on a flattened disco ball, but decreasing the size of each facet until a smooth surface is achieved.

Oh, so it's like a Fresnel lens, but it's a mirror instead of a lens. That's pretty clever. You get the non-reversing property of a curved mirror, but it's still flat.

Edit: Another way of thinking of it is that it's a normal map applied to a real-world object.