Ajax without XMLHttpRequest

I caught this on digg.com this morning. If you aren't familiar with the term Ajax, it is the use of Javascript, XML, and a dynamic server side language to update content on a web page without any additional page loads. The downside is the requirement of XMLHttpRequest which is the method by which the additional server calls are done. This article has a concept which emulates Ajax without the XML or the use of XMLHttpRequest. It seems like it could be handy if the Ajax concept is too confusing, but this method might result in less managable code.