The new life form will depend for its ability to replicate itself and metabolise on the molecular machinery of the cell into which it has been injected, and in that sense it will not be a wholly synthetic life form. However, its DNA will be artificial, and it is the DNA that controls the cell and is credited with being the building block of life.

This is exciting as is: A modified life form is no small accomplishment but I don't think it really counts as "new". Mixing stuff in a vat and created gene sequences is pretty amazing. But is it "creating"? I don't think so:

The DNA sequence is based on the bacterium Mycoplasma genitalium which the team pared down to the bare essentials needed to support life, removing a fifth of its genetic make-up.

I think this means they have "created" a bacterium that does nothing but live.

Is that really newsworthy? If they removed genetic information, does that count as "creating"?

Now, if they took some e. coli and took out a fifth of it's genetic make-up and rendered it harmless, THAT would be interesting. Introduce this new strain into the wild and see if the results are that food poisoning goes down because the e. coli population looses its ability to do "bad" things.

That would be something!