Tilt-shift photography has been around for a long time.  Tilt changes the plane of focus, from the regular vertical plane (parallel to the film), to intersect the film (or sensor) at different angles.  This is why you only see a horizontal band of the picture in focus.  Shift changes the perspective of the photo, to either make parallel lines more or less parallel.

These days, there’s been a resurgence of tilt-shift-like photography, although the focus (no pun intented) is more on the tilt side of things.  The real appeal is that it makes the photo look like a miniature model.  There’s all sorts of software (fairly simple really, just apply blur) that will allow you to turn a regular photo into a tilted photo.

Now there’s even an online tool.

Here’s the original.