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NFB StopMo Studio is a complete stop-motion utility for iPad that not only teaches you the basics of stop-motion animation, but lets you shoot your first stop-motion film as well. The application was actually born from the National Film Board of Canada's "legendary animation workshops," and concentrates "decades of expertise" to make it the App Store's very best stop-motion tool.

The app features a wide variety of capture tools including time-lapse features, access to both front-facing and rear-facing cameras, "onion skins," a grid tool, and more. Additionally, after you've shot your stop-motion film the app also provides many editing features such as the ability to add an iTunes soundtrack, add fade-in, fade-out, and sound effects, and the ability to export your film to MP4 format.

You can get NFB StopMo Studio from the App Store for $0.99. The app is only compatible with iPad.

Check out the below stop-motion video, which was made with the StopMo Studio app:

Supercell has made an absolute killing over the past year with two colossal hits in Hay Day and Clash of Clans. The latter particularly has been a rather successful and influential game, spawning countless imitators but only in style, not in success: the game has duked it out with Candy Crush Saga for number one on the top grossing charts. But now, Supercell is ready to land on the beaches of the future with their latest game, Boom Beach. It’s currently seeing a soft launch in Canada, so we got on our boots and readied a dispatch on Supercell’s latest in this edition of It Came From Canada!

Boom Beach, like many other games including Clash of Clans, has two phases: building and combat. Building involves, well, building out a base. It’s very similar to other free-to-play building games: build resource stockades, material harvesters, and other handy buildings all set to wait timers that can be skipped with secondary currency. However, the interesting part begins with the combat.

The combat gameplay has players choosing which troops they want to launch onto the invading beach, with units like heavies able to withstand lots of blows on the front line while troopers hide safely behind them. From there on out the battles take place mostly automatically, but players can call in artillery strikes to help take out certain buildings so it’s not an entirely passive experience. Players spend gold to help uncover new parts of the world to go and attack - starting with CPU encounters before eventually getting to face other players by upgrading the radar to a higher level. Still, this is a strictly-solo affair for the early days of play.

It’s all a very familiar formula, but it’s one that’s certainly deeper than the average free-to-play game. It’ll be interesting to see how this one pans out in the coming weeks as it ramps up to a worldwide launch, and if long-term it winds up being much different from Clash of Clans. Still, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it, and Supercell is hardly going broke with their formula.

Looks like Supercell is at it again with another bound-to-be Mega Hit. Boom Beach puts players in a slightly more contemporary game of war as they battle with each other over dominance of a series of tropical islands, raid evil Blackguard bases, and face off against some really nasty bosses. Clash of Clans-style, naturally.

Boom Beach is currently only available in the Canadian App Store, so don't expect to download it to your US account just yet. Still, since it's already testing in the Great White North one would assume a US release is imminent. So get ready for the BOOM!

Being a US based website, many of you probably have no idea what The Score is. The Score Television Network is a fairly large sports network that goes out to "6.8 million homes across Canada", covering all sports from US Football to Association Football (soccer). While obviously lagging behind the readership/viewership of the likes of SI and ESPN, The Score is trying to pick up the pace by really hitting the mobile app audience.

With an iPhone app already doing quite well in the sports category, the iPad edition is looking to take the content a step further by adding original video content, video content from the network, and a slick new interface to pull it all together.

"theScore iPad Edition takes advantage of all the great features the iPad has to offer and leverages its native performance and flexible web views," says Jeff Brenner, Co-Founder, NuLayer. "It's an awesome app that provides a socially-integrated way to explore the sports world. Fans are going to love it."

The best part about the app is that it's free to all users, so pick it up and soak in the glory.

In a recent press statement (which I had trouble tracking down), Virgin announced that they will be offering the iPhone in the "coming months" to Canadians (all indications are that it will be in February 2010). Recently here in Canada (Ryan, the author, is from Canada - ed.) we saw the addition of two more iPhone carriers in Bell and Telus but both offered very little in terms of competitive plans against the previous carrier, Rogers. As a consumer I was really hoping this increased competition would see an improvement in the available plans, but it appears that they all have a pact to not even make an effort. All of them offer almost the exact same plans, rates, and contracts with extremely little variation.

In most countries iPhone purchasers have the ability to pick up the devices for $199 on 2 year contracts, but not here in Canada. All 3 carriers offer 3 year contracts only. It also rumoured that Virgin will be offering the same forced 3 year contracts on us consumers. Now, Virgin has been establishing itself as a budget carrier with free phones, cheap plans, and generally the place to go if you are a very light phone user. So how they come at the release of the iPhone on their network should be very interesting. I believe that they have a real chance to steal a significant market share if they offer up something unique and flexible with this famous device. I'd love to see Virgin take a risk in it's pricing structure and allow a la cart pricing plans, pay as you go data, and 2 year contracts. I'd even be willing to fork over an extra $100 at purchase to get one less year on my contract.

With this addition, we are one of the leading countries in terms of carrier choice for the iPhone, but sadly still behind on pricing and contract options. If Virgin misses this opportunity to steal a decent size of the market, I'll be sad, because I really want to get one, but no one has provided what I'm looking for.

ngmoco:)'s hotly anticipated titles, Touch Pets: Dogs and Eliminate, have finally made their way past Apple's approval process. For those who don't know, Touch Pets is a pet sim that focuses on raising and training "the ultimate puppy" and also includes a wide array of social features. Eliminate, meanwhile, is a multiplayer online first person shooter. Both games will be free (yes, you read that right!) but will feature In-App Purchases. Note that IAP's won't be necessary to play the game; you'll just need them to unlock extras. With Eliminate, for example, you get to play a certain number of games per day before your "energy" runs out; you can play without energy but you won't be able to earn any in-game credits.

While both apps are approved, don't get too excited: ngmoco is doing a Canada-only release first, to make sure that "all Eliminate systems are online and all puppies are house broken before unleashing upon the world," according to their tweet. It's an interesting strategy that will have non-Canadian fans grumbling, but given that ngmoco is releasing two extremely hyped games with heavy online components at once, it makes sense. Once the games make their USA debut, we'll post our reviews; for now, you can check out our preview coverage from earlier this month.

Update: Eliminate is now out worldwide. Make sure you grab it! It generally takes a few hours for new apps to show up in the App Store, so don't worry if you can't see it yet.

Canadians can get Touch Pets here, though the rest of the world is still waiting.

Since the iPhone expanded into Canada, we have only had one option as a provider. That carrier has been Rogers (note: Fido also carries the iPhone, but they are owned by Rogers) and they have taken advantage of that market position and currently offer one of the worst contracts world wide of all the iPhone carriers.

Last fall, Canada also had a spectrum auction which allowed other companies to purchase access to the various remaining open wireless spectrum. The CRTC opened up the auction with the intention of leveling out the market and providing competition in the mobile space, which has traditionally been non existent in Canada compared to say the European markets. We have yet to see any of those new players really open up and act on their purchases yet. So those of us who wanted an iPhone, but don't really care for Rogers have been out of luck. Well, an announcement today made by Telus and Bell seem to have changed all of that.

In anticipation for the upcoming Olympics in Vancouver the two carriers have spent a year upgrading their spectrum to allow HSPA phones on their network. Previously they have only run CDMA, which the iPhone does not function on. With this upgrade, they can now offer the device as early as next month, and the news is circulating throughout the internet today.

When these two carriers do jump into the iPhone field, this can only mean good things for consumers who have held out in purchasing the device. This also means many more units moved, more developers making apps, etc. I really hope Telus and Bell take advantage of the situation and offer a blockbuster deal. (Hint: Give me the 3GS in a 2 year contract, $60/month with unlimited data and I'll be getting in line). Previously though these carriers have been somewhat disappointing with their offerings, but perhaps the iPhone will be the spark needed for some missing competition.

Just a word of warning to the two carriers. Don't screw this launch up, much like Rogers did. Get lots of product in, set a competitive contract and rate plan against the world carriers, and don't put fine print rules around the usage of data. The iPhone is changing the world and how we use smartphones. The market is glad to have you here, but please don't screw it up.