Summary.
Several companies unveiled the progresses of their third generation technology in the Advances in Genome Biology and Technology meeting held in Florida.
Complete Genomics said "by June its materials cost will be down to $1,000 per genome."
Pacific Biosciences read E.coli genomes using its machines with average read length of 586 base pairs, with some as long as 2,805 base pairs (longest read ever). "It aims to produce entire human genomes in under three minutes by 2013." (only three minutes !!)
Illumina also plans to reduce the cost to read "human genomes for as little as $10,000 by the end of this year".
Helicos Biosciences has difficulty getting stable results due to inaccuracy and cost.
We don't have much time left until adoptation of the 3rd generation technology.