Whilst many are still enjoying the Thanksgiving turkey, select geeks/hackers are working on ways to help you save 50 cents. Earlier this month, Microsoft's next-gen mobile operating system Windows Phone 7 based smartphone had started hitting the U.S. markets. Just before it went en masse, three guys - Rafael Rivera, Chris Walsh and Long Zheng released WP7 unlocker tool - ChevronWP7. With this tool, any WP7 phone can be unlocked and applications can be side-loaded without the need of a developer account.

Now, you might be thinking why on earth you would unlock/jailbreak the WP7? To be honest, the first defense would be that jailbreaking for fair use is now legal in U.S. Earlier in July, Library of Congress passed a ruling that unlocking and jailbreaking the mobile phone is legal. Here's a snipped that connects to this 'unlocking' tool.

Computer programs that enable wireless telephone handsets to execute software applications, where circumvention is accomplished for the sole purpose of enabling interoperability of such applications, when they have been lawfully obtained, with computer programs on the telephone handset.

Rafael Rivera, Chris Walsh and istartedsomething blog author Long Zheng together devised the ChevronWP7 tool to unlock WP7 device without a Marketplace developer account. Once you've unlocked you can side-load 'experimental' applications that weren't or can't be available through Windows Marketplace - Microsoft's App Store.

ChevronWP7 is a simple executable file which can be used once a WP7 handset is connected to a PC via USB cable. Just in case you can't get it running, a number of fixes are suggested in the blog post. This tool works with Windows XP SP2 and higher versions. This tool can't perform SIM unlocks and is more of a jailbreak tool.

Now this WP7 unlocking tool has raised all the concerns and rumors about Apps Piracy. In response to those rumors, all three guys mentioned in their stand against piracy that they don't condone piracy. Technical aspects are clarified:

All Marketplace application XAP packages are sufficiently protected so that you cannot sideload to run them on any unlocked device (official or with our tool). We have no intentions or knowledge to break that protection. (You can still run legitimately purchased and downloaded applications after unlocking)

It's like the door of innumerable possibilities has been opened and Microsoft should foresee all possible outcomes in the future. Either Microsoft can patch those holes or let users take the other path where experimental packages can be installed. Clearly, we see another Cydia-like entire Package Manager in the making.