What IS cloud computing?

We are on the verge of the biggest technological paradigm shift since the world wide web. Instead of all the individual people having their own computers, we all share one big computer network. This is comparable to "what if everyone converting from using independent automobiles to using public transportation." The Ausus eeePC/Xandros, FreeGeek/Ubuntu, Everex/gOS, iPhone-iPod/OSX, OLPC/Red Hat, public library computer access and coffee-shop free Internet access are but a sign of things to come. On the horizon is the 50 Euro laptop and the gPhones (Android-linux devices that will take forms "beyond current imagination.") That "shared consciousness for all of humanity" hippies have been dreaming about for the last five decades? Well good news for these technophobes: we are on the verge of a universal shared consciousness through portable linux-based communication devices and a robust digital communication infrastructure. (That infrastructure being based on mega-web-servers made from thousands of computers integrated in single one-building facilities, like what is used by Yahoo and Google.) And remember, Microsoft has fought this every step of the way (which has me wondering: who's paying the bills over at the cloud-computing critic's club?): http://badvista.fsf.org/freesoftwarefreesociety/free-software-free-society/