What is HTTP/2 and why is it important?

The tech world has been abuzz over the long-awaited coming of HTTP/2, but what the hell is that and why is it so great? To lay it out as simply as possible, HTTP has been used for more than a 15 years as a mechanism for your browser to receive data from a server and turn that into what you see on your screen now. As you might have guessed, HTTP/2 is the successor to that protocol. Engadget was kind enough to explain things a bit more in-depth.