French coder Smealum will soon be releasing a Homebrew Channel hack for the 3DS. It’s compatible with the latest 3DS firmware and supports North American, European, and Japanese systems.
Note that the hack will not load commercial or pirated 3DS ROMs. Users will only be able to launch homebrew apps and games.
As far as region unlocking goes, Smealum recently mentioned that “playing games from other region[s] should almost definitely be possible” sometime in the future.
