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Presence Examples From The Palm Beach (Florida) Post Palm gadget maker adds new dimension to gaming By Stephen Pounds Michael Epstein and Nathan Newman's 3D glasses make computer images leap from the screen. The two 25-year-olds are partners in eDimensional, a company in West Palm Beach that sells 3D glasses and other gizmos that turn computer gaming into a more lifelike experience. "Our glasses convert games to what you see in the real world," Epstein said. As if video games aren't fun enough already. Epstein and Newman have been trying money-making schemes since high school when they first started a car-detailing business in Potomac, Md., where they grew up. The idea for the video game glasses came to Newman on a visit to the Universal Studios theme park in Orlando, where he sat through The Terminator 3D show and thought gamers would enjoy the same experience at home in front of their own personal computer. "I came out of the theater and immediately called Mike," Newman said. The glasses work with most video games but are most popular with gamers who play Microsoft's Flight Simulator game. Epstein and Newman package the glasses themselves at their small office at CityPlace and make most sales over the Internet. The wired 3D glasses that plug into a computer cost $70; the wireless model, $100. Their target market is men, ages 25 to 55, or "Boomers with
bucks," said Mike DeCastro, editorial director of "We get stuff all over the transom thrown at us and most of it's junk," DeCastro said. "Finding a good product is like the search for the Holy Grail, especially when you're forking over $100. These guys have come up with products that are really hot." In the three years since they started eDimensional, Newman and Epstein have made $5 million selling computer-game accessories. They employ 14 people and operate a distribution center in the United Kingdom for European sales. The two have computer backgrounds but are not full-fledged programmers. So, they married glasses used with computer programs for training doctors and for other industrial purposes to 3D software that gamers were using with the cruder, paper 3D goggles given out at movie theaters. The software converts a two-dimensional game into a 3D stereoscopic view. Then, each lens of the glasses alternately opens and closes at a rate imperceptible to the human eye to create the 3D illusion. "In real life, each eye is viewing the same scene from a slightly different perspective (and sees a three-dimensional image). We emulate that on a two-dimensional computer monitor," Newman said. In addition to the 3D glasses, they sell other cool gadgets -- a software program that allows you to operate video games with voice commands ($50), a headset that gives the wearer a sense of feeling the action on the screen ($50) and a device that changes the direction of a character inside a game based on the motion of a player's head ($130). For $300, you can buy them all and completely eliminate key strokes. "It's a whole virtual reality experience," Epstein said. |