Microsoft unveils "cloud" operating system.

I'm pretty sure this will lead to sentient Matrix-like computer programs. From Xinhaunet:

BEIJING, Oct. 28 (Xinhuanet) -- Microsoft on Monday unveiled a new "cloud" operating system Windows Azure at its annual Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles.

Windows Azure is a platform that allows third-party developers to host, manage, calculate and store data for applications running on the Internet.

Azure is clearly Microsoft's response to a computing world going ever more deeper into the "cloud" (also known as the Internet). So in a sense what Microsoft is trying to do with Azure is re-define what an OS is, for the cloud computing age.

"It's a transformation of our software. It's a transformation of our strategy," Ray Ozzie, Microsoft's chief software architect, said at the Professional Developer's Conference, Microsoft's annual gathering of third-party engineers to detail the company's future plans.

Traditionally, software has run on a single computer's hard drive, but as Internet connections became faster and more reliable, companies started to deliver software as an online service by using the computing power of the "cloud," a network of powerful computer servers accessed over the Web.

Microsoft explained in a white paper on the Azure website, "Windows Azure runs on a large number of machines, all located in Microsoft data centers and accessible via the Internet."