'...But what happens when it rains?' Cloud computing may be the latest buzz-word, but half of us think it can be affected by bad weather

While 'the cloud' may be the technological buzzword of the year, many Americans are pretty hazy on what the cloud actually is. 

In its most general form, cloud-computing is keeping documents and data on remote internet servers that can be accessed from multiple computers, tablets and smartphones.

And if you have an Internet connection, chances are you have used it, simply by uploading pictures to Facebook, Flickr or Instagram, using a web-email service like Gmail, or sharing files via services like DropBox.

But it seems the moniker is confusing people, for when researchers asked 1,004 people what they knew of the cloud, 51 per cent of participants assumed storms and high winds would cost them their data.

It does not really matter for consumers whether or not they know what the cloud is, as it is generally big business that uses it the most, and the service usually runs 'invisibly' to home users.

Indeed, any sharing website such as Facebook is effectively running a cloud service, allowing people to dip into and out of files, and DropBox, which allows you to synchronise folders on your PC to an online source.

The misconception was uncovered by the team from Wakefield Research and Citrix, who carried out the survey.

While 54 percent of those surveyed who said they had never used the cloud - 95 per cent reported using banking online and using online file-sharing sites.

These included:

• 65% of responders have banked online
• 63% have shopped online
• 58% report using social networking sites
• 45% have played online games
• 29% store photos online
• 22% have stored music or videos online
• 19% use online file-sharing services

Human nature being human nature, one in five said they had pretended to know what the cloud is when talking about it.

Nearly 14 per cent of people had pretended to know during a job interview, while - surprisingly - 17 per cent claimed to have done the same thing on a first date.

But if you are tempted to lie, the game may be up: 50 per cent of people said they could tell when someone else tried to bluff their way to a definition.