I fail to see the hyping of cloud computing beyond people drinking buzzword kool-aid

[Zappykins]

They cloud may be an overused buzzword, but that doesn't negate the advance that Microsoft, and others, are trying to do to bring more future to you now. Don't think of it as a Sony vs Microsoft thing, but as a stand alone vs shared resources kind of thing.

Do you stream Movies, Music and TV? That is using the cloud. Instead of having to drive somewhere to get something that was made somewhere else and shipped to that location. You can simple have the data sent to your location and enjoy the experience.

Have you seen people enjoy World of Warcraft? Everquest? Cal of Duty online? Those are all in the cloud. Some of the game runs far away on a server, and some of it runs on your computer. Both work together to make a bigger, richer better experience.

One of the other things that I think is really cool is how the could can be used to enhance graphics. To make a noticeably visual improvement, you usually have to double the hardware power (or software efficiency). That cloud can be used to do that - think of it like sending complex blueprints to your computer, then your computer used those to render what you get to see. Your computer/console works hard doing it's part, and the servers work hard doing their part - so you get a much better looking looking game than is possible on your system.

You could think of it like this - to render a dinosaur well, they have to calculate first where it is, then the bones, the muscles, then put the skin on top, shadows, translucently, light reflections, etc. Where it is flexing and stretching. A server could do the bones and muscles - which is huge chuck of math - send that to your computer/console which add the skin and some shadows and you get a much more realistic looking game than would be possible just on your console.

Here is a demo of some cloud graphics Nvidia and Microsoft worked on together. Jump to 40 second is you want to skip the technical part.