They're covering this like it's a new thing... At least at the end they mention this:

>The rocket traveled 1.2 meters into the air - the world record for such a craft is 72 meters and 12.7 seconds of flight, accomplished in 2001.

ie, 9 years since a massively more successful demonstration. Slow science news day?

edit: the ones I've seen before were essentially two cones, one upside down and inside the other. It was spun, and lasers / masers were shot at the bottom, creating a bit of plasma near the joint of the two cones.

      /\
     /  \
    /    \
   / \  / \
    ^ \/ ^
    │    │
    └────┴── plasma