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Glowforge is a CNC Laser Cutter, not a 3D Printer (Video)
Co-Founder and CEO Dan Shapiro says, right at the beginning of the interview, that the Glowforge machine is a CNC laser cutter and engraver, not a 3-D Printer. He says they've "simplified the heck" out of the hardware and software, and are making an easy-to-use, non-costly ($2500 has been bandied about as the unit's likely price) device that can fit on a kitchen table -- or, more likely, a workbench at a maker facility. Although Dan did very well on Kickstarter (and afterwards) with his previous venture, Robot Turtles, this time he seems to have raised his first $9 million in the venture capital market, with participation from several MakerBot executives.
Glowforge is not the only CNC laser cutter/etcher device out there (or about to be). In Australia, Darkly Labs appears to have raised $569,397 (AUD) on Kickstarter to bring their LazerBlade to life, and already makes a small laser device called the Emblaser. There are others, too, including Boxzy, which did the Kickstarter thing and will now sell you a device that "rapidly transforms into 3 kinds of machines: CNC Mill, 3D Printer & Laser Engraver while enhancing precision & power with ballscrews." All this, and their top-of-the-line "does everything" machine sells for a mere $3500. Obviously, devices to give makers and prototypers the ability to make ever more complex and accurate shapes are coming to market like crazy. We'll continue to keep an eye on all this activity, including a second video interview with Glowforge's Dan Shapiro tomorrow.
Glowforge is not the only CNC laser cutter/etcher device out there (or about to be). In Australia, Darkly Labs appears to have raised $569,397 (AUD) on Kickstarter to bring their LazerBlade to life, and already makes a small laser device called the Emblaser. There are others, too, including Boxzy, which did the Kickstarter thing and will now sell you a device that "rapidly transforms into 3 kinds of machines: CNC Mill, 3D Printer & Laser Engraver while enhancing precision & power with ballscrews." All this, and their top-of-the-line "does everything" machine sells for a mere $3500. Obviously, devices to give makers and prototypers the ability to make ever more complex and accurate shapes are coming to market like crazy. We'll continue to keep an eye on all this activity, including a second video interview with Glowforge's Dan Shapiro tomorrow.
One could argue that an inkjet printer is thus a CNC extruder, then. Where does it end? We make up words to usefully cover categories and describe concepts, and sometimes those categories and concepts overlap. "CNC", "extruder" ,and "milling machine", are just too generic to be used in some cases, and too specific to cover the wide variety of CNC additive manufacturing devices, so "3D printer" was added to the mix to specifically cover all slice-based additive manufacturing devices, whether they be extruder, glued powder, film exposure, or sintering based (and possibly other types).
So, there are machines that are both CNC extruders and 3D printers, but not all CNC extruders are 3D printers, and not all 3D printers are CNC extruders.
Also note that a CNC laser is not a CNC milling machine. In fact, the CNC milling machine owners get huffy if you call a CNC router a "CNC milling machine". Perhaps the phrase you were looking for is "CNC subtractive manufacturing device" ?