The Librarian of Congress banned the practice of buying a cell phone and unlocking it last October. Tech News Daily pointed out that the librarian provided a 90-day buffer in which wireless customers could purchase and unlock their phones. That period ends on Saturday.

Basically, when one unlocks a phone, it will free the handset from restrictions which ensure the device will work only on a particular network, meaning any other network that runs on a similar wireless standard will be able to play nice with said handset. Those who travel overseas often would find that unlocked phones are the most ideal route to take, while others prefer to have the freedom to switch carriers anytime they like.

But not everyone will have to make do with locked phones. As Mashable notes, "Verizon's iPhone 5 comes out of the box already unlocked, and AT&T will unlock a phone once it is out of contract." What's more, you can pay full-price for a phone, as opposed to the discounted price that comes with a multi-year contract, to receive it "unlocked from the get-go."

Source: appleinsider

Both the Samsung Galaxy Note III and the Galaxy Gear smartwatch are all but confirmed to be ready for an official unveiling on September 4th, and today we've received the shipping dates for both devices in our mailbox - the third-generation Note will start shipping in the same month it is announced, while the smartwatch will arrive in the market from October.

The Galaxy Gear is Samsung's first attempt at making a smartwatch. Reportedly, it features a 1.67 inch AMOLED display with 320 x 320 pixels, NFC, 1GB of RAM, and an Exynos 4212 processor.

The Galaxy Note III seemingly features a 5.68 inch Full HD display, 13MP rear camera, 3GB of RAM, and a 3,200 mAh battery. The LTE version (model number SM-N9005) uses a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor, while the non-LTE one (SM-N900) comes with Samsung's new Exynos 5420 Octa.

Source: unwiredview