Starting this month I’ll be picking my product of the month, this is the roll up of all of the product of the week selections on www.technewsworld.com from the preceding month.

The candidates are:

SceneCaster:http://www.scenecaster.com

In what was an amazing coincidence, I met with a company called "SceneCaster," which today is launching a tool that makes the commerce side of the 3-D Web a near-term reality. Others have evidently been calling this the YouTube for the 3-D Web. This tool allows you to create your own virtual world by linking to generally available, public 3-D objects which themselves are often active links to other things.

Think of being able to create an exact duplicate of your home (it is CAD based) populating it with virtual representations of real objects you would like to buy and, with a single click, being able to buy them once you were satisfied with the result.

Also think of the ability to create your own fantasy worlds that could contain YouTube videos or links to other things and images from your favorite movies, graphic novels and TV shows. You'll be able to roam freely between your world and those created by your friends or even complete strangers.

Unlike properties like Second Life, imagine being able to take your hard work and easily move it to another site.

While short of the ability I'm looking for where you can raid Second Life with a "World of Warcraft" (or in my case, "City of Heroes") strike team, it's one big step towards the 3-D Web. Check it out.

Dr. Grordort’s Infallible Aether Oscillators http://www.wetanz.com

As you can imagine I get a lot of really fun technology toys, but when it comes to what I want for my birthday I can be incredibly hard to buy for. This year my wife bought me one of the coolest things I've ever seen. It is a Steampunk Raygun.

Built by a company specializing in movie props, this Raygun comes in a velvet-lined case and the entire thing looks like it came right out of a good '50s era sci-fi movie. I ended up with the Infinity Beam Projector, which at just under $700 isn't cheap, unlike an iPhone; however, you carry this on a plane and you will be noticed.

Think how handy this will be if aliens (and I mean the little-green-men type) actually do invade.

Each version has a limited run, and the first version is already sold out -- so if you want to save the world or simply scare the crap out of the neighbors, this thing is for you.

We often compliment Apple's TV ads; Dr. Grordbort's ads are incredibly different.

Fuze Media: Whole House Entertainment http://www.fuzeav.com

Fuze Media is a little company that appears to have a lot of Apple DNA. Fuze looked at both Microsoft Media Center and Intel Viiv, and concluded that both sucked. So it set out to create a product that was both based on both technologies and completed the offerings to create something real people would enjoy using.

Sold by home theater companies and system installers, this is not a do-it-yourself system.

This product uses a combination of gigabit Ethernet and a proprietary network to move TV, movies, PC content and music around your home. It's not cheap, but once in, you have most of the benefits of a Microsoft/Intel system without the drawbacks of it feeling incomplete. It is very easy to use.

At its core is a Vista Media Center PC that has been finished. In other words, Fuze competed the last 20 percent of the product Microsoft left incomplete. If you want to see what Media Center should have been, check this system out.

The distributed video is handled by Mac Mini-like small Intel PCs with identical interfaces, while music is hardwired into the house and uses wall switches, touchscreen controllers, and remotes to work.

Unlike Viiv or Media Center, you can put the entire house on the same playlist at the same time (this is the reason I have a Sonos system). While Kaleidescape does a better job with movies (it won the right to let you actually rip your DVDs), it is much more expensive and doesn't do TV; nor is the music solution as well integrated.

If you are in the market for a high-end home video/audio solution (as in, you are probably building a house), this thing is worth checking out. It's also worth looking at to see what Viiv and Media Center could and should have been.

NComputing: The $60 PC for Education http://www.ncomputing.com

NComputing, run by the first ex-eMachines CEO, has a really interesting shared computer architecture that is evidently cutting right through both the education market in the U.S. and in emerging Eastern Bloc countries.

We've known for some time that the performance we are buying is generally more than we can use, unless we are doing high-end gaming or heavy analysis.

The NComputing solution has two versions. The lowest cost uses hard-wired, solid-state terminals, which allow up to seven users to work off a single current-generation low-cost (sub-$500) PC concurrently.

The higher-end solution allows up to 10 users, connected over Ethernet, to connect a similar computer or up to 30 if you host on a server. Often these are actually deployed by teachers.

This is the solution that was used to get 11,000 delegates at the World Trade Organization connected back in 2005, both showing that the solution isn't new and that it scales -- man, it really scales.

What is amazing is that for most of the activities you or I do -- including word processing, browsing the Web, email and even casual games -- this actually works very well.

While the solution works with Windows, it appears the majority that have been sold are based on Linux. The overall solution may represent one of the strongest opportunities Linux has on the desktop.

This is because kids grow up, and if they get comfortable with Linux as kids they'll likely be comfortable with Linux as adults. The solution is already getting into business.

Who says the desktop is dead?

The Winner: SceneCaster

In my mind it came down to Scenecaster and NComputing both of which had potentially huge impacts on our future. But while NComputing could change education we are clearly moving to the 3D web for certain and making that happen will have more global implications.

Scenecaster is my first product of the month. (And I’ll bet you thought it was going to be the Raygun).