Add optical capture and recognition for two cameras, variable focus control for the laser, multiple fan controls, cooling plan, etc. etc.
Actually this would be super cool. Like a secret santa thing. Not when ur sleeping since thats not safe but while watching tv or whatever. But I feel internet forces might invade and we would all end up with either cat or penis projects
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You would have to preload the material as well. I can’t say I would want someone to have remote access to a laser in my home… it is bad enough that it has to be hooked up to the wifi. Remember when hackers could open your CD player remotely?.. now add a laser to it. I would like the idea of a site with awesome designs that your friends and family can sign into and request or click favorite on. That way when you get the materials and time you can make it for them. Or others who want to pay you money for the service.
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Remember, you still need to push to button on the glowforge for anything to happen.
I would really hope that the folks writing the software are not allowing any work-arounds for that!
As an aside, Glowforge has already announced plans to build exactly the sort of design sharing service you are describing.
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Either the Glowforge needs realtime control from the cloud, or not. If it needs realtime control, then I need really, really reliable Internet: If I am in the middle of engraving a steak for dinner 
then I don’t want to lose my work before time to eat it. If on the other hand I can use the all-powerful cloud to build a control file than can then run without realtime control, I am in a different situation and things are probably OK.
@dan has confirmed this as well. So as long as you don’t have a 72oz steak, you probably won’t have a problem engraving your dinner 
From what we’ve been told. The cloud servers send control information down to an internal buffer. If the job is small enough and you lose connection the job completes. If not, it pauses and waits for the link to re-establish.
What CD player did you have with no laser in it?! 
In one of the other threads about connection requirements, I had submitted a request for a temporary access PIN system specifically for a secret santa or commission type of functionality. This would allow you to give limited access to your machine to various people.
Though the most common (and sensible) response to that was you could just have those people send you the design file instead of loading it themselves.
There are fringe cases of course where you could still find need of it, so Dan did say it was added to the feature hopper.
I like this idea. It sounds fun and scary at the same time. Yes you would have to preload whatever is being cut, and you would have to press the button, but you might get something good.
Just to be clear here… I meant that as a joke!
I am hoping we have a way to preview ALL print jobs that have been sent to our IP (or mac) address prior to printing.
Otherwise I can see all manner of mischief in the making.
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…I still like the idea of a fax machine that uses plywood or leather! 
I wonder how the buffer will work. It seems to be engineered to deal with the vagaries of IP traffic. But what about a job that gets repeated over and over. So I have a job that I just did. Same setup, same materials. How about building into the job a “number of copies” function that you you just have to swap materials and press print again handy for those internet outages when you are waiting for it to return. You can always have your one or two jobs that are always good to go. Once again. I understand that this requires memory etc. maybe not GF 1.0 but surely will come. It seems to be in the hopper from the indexing thread.
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To be clear: I have no laser cutter experience. I understand that it is not unusual (or at least not unheard of) to start a fire in your material if you get the parameters wrong. This means that you need to be standing there next to the cutter any time that you are doing a new job and you should probably be there even when re-running a “known good” job. Thus, remote control is not really useful and the best security is simply to switch the machine off when unattended. My real problem is loss of time and functionality if I lose my Internet connection. Night before Christmas, toys to make, and some idiot runs into a telephone pole in the neighborhood or a different kind of idiot deliberately cuts a fiber in a manhole.
From previous post and interviews with @dan the cloud is used to generate the tool paths and cooling plans for the job and then it is sent to the Glowforge. The Glowforge will then cache the job locally to run. So it isn’t doing any real time control.
Being on the cloud also let them reduce software design costs and will let them roll out feature much quicker since they will only need to update the cloud service.
Yeah there could be mystery files. You put in say cardboard that fits the full size and away you go. Choose file secret santa 21 and get a lamp. Or secret santa 54 and get a 3d smurf. Cool.
Just discovered my Wife’s Glowforge Christmas surprise after I wiped out all previous email communications. I’m not exactly sure what the “cloud” is and would like to know if my 2Mbps internet cable modem with a linksys e2000 router is sufficient. Can anyone please simply say whether this will or will not run the Glowforge? Thanks.
Yes it will run the Glowforge you’ll just need to send the file from a computer in your house.
Thank You!