Can Windows 8 save the PC from extinction?

I was unaware that the traditional PC was in danger of disappearing. I think PC sales are down because its been years since most people have had a real need for an upgrade. Hardware purchased in 2008 is still more than usable. Software doesn't seem to be driving the need for hardware upgrades the way it did a decade ago.

What sensationalist claptrap. The author can't even find consistency between his title and the content of the article itself:

"Laptop and desktop PCs will never die off entirely; the keyboard and big-screen form factor is ideal for desk-bound tasks."

Wait, I thought the desktop PC was bound for extinction? Now it's never going to die off entirely? Isn't that the definition of "extinction"?

I'm not a Windows fan, but if you watch some of the channel9 videos and see what they've done with Win8, they may be on to something [finally]. They tried some of this with Vista, but with iOS showing them the way, they may have stumbled onto something that will actually work.

Can we stop this meme? Other point out, quite correctly, that we're in sort of a PC golden age where anything runs everything. That's why sales are bad and probably why media outlets are on a doom kick: they have nothing else to say.

The traditional PC (even... the desktop!) isn't going anywhere for a long time.

Maybe Microsoft will have to redesign both the operating system and the PC architecture so that the PC still does the stuff of old on one half and competes with the cloud on the other.

Can the peanut gallery on sites like hacker news save us from the unnuanced, bloviating and sensationalist fanboyism that passes for professional reporting these days?

No.

CNN jumped the gun here. I'm asking myself why someone thought this deserved to be on HN?

The PC is definitely not going extinct. What was going extinct was the Windows interface/way of doing things. That being said, any good software developer knows that design and dev are not mutually exclusive. A product can look absolutely spectacular, but fall apart due to bugs and other issues. Unless Windows 8 manages to completely eliminate things like the BSOD and frequent crashes, a new interface won't change a whole lot.