With Win8, all you see is a wrapper screen of Apps which they have pulled around Win7 underneath. The Windows key on the keyboard was always around but now it is going to be the one key most-in-use, all because they eliminated the start button (so no need to use your mouse to get going).
If you have seen Joli cloud OS, you can tell that they did the same with Ubuntu a long time ago. They wrapped a Chrome browser over the base desktop OS, making it easy for average user to use Linux. But I don't think Jolicloud captured attention from anywhere. Microsoft on the other hand is a 800 pound gorilla and there is no doubt that in few years, we will all be asking Win7 users to get the hell out of their desktops.
Tomshardware is in fact double wrong: Win+Q and charms search lead to the application specific search (eg when in Music, you'll search music, when in Mail, mail).
Only when you are on the startscreen or desktop will you get the 'application' search as default via Win+Q.