This sounds similar to the kind of armour employed by the International Space Station. The basic principle is to use a thin and hard layer to fragment the projectile, then a soft interstitial layer to absorb the energy of the resulting high velocity particles over a wider area, before stopping them and absorbing the momentum with a baseplate.
A lot of the article's speculation about use is silly (smartphones?), because the technology relies on being thick, in order for the fragmentation particles to disperse. This makes the most sense for use in spacecraft and maybe military aircraft where weight is costly and volume is not. In military scenarios you don't just have to worry about high velocity, but high momentum. Projectiles are often designed to be penetrating, and explosive reactive armour is much more effective against this.
A lot of the article's speculation about use is silly (smartphones?), because the technology relies on being thick, in order for the fragmentation particles to disperse. This makes the most sense for use in spacecraft and maybe military aircraft where weight is costly and volume is not. In military scenarios you don't just have to worry about high velocity, but high momentum. Projectiles are often designed to be penetrating, and explosive reactive armour is much more effective against this.