Man, the Helicos PR machine is running at full speed. This headline is grossly misleading. Yes, you can decode a human genome for 50K, but if I'm not mistaken, the instrument itself is a million dollars. So, anyone decoding your genome certainly isn't going to do it at cost if they have any hope of getting a return on their instrumentation investment.
Looks like the main purpose of titles/headlines is to get people to read the article, than being accurate.
I have been noticing it too many times at too many places these days. Especially on big news network like CNN/ESPN. They will have completely misleading title for the post just to grab attention.
A mri scan costs < 800 euros, the equipment costs millions of dollars. It's not like you throw it away after the first 20 uses.
Dr. Quake and his Heliscope Single Molecule Sequencer. Sounds like a bad movie villain!