SINGAPORE: Japan's All Nippon Airways (ANA) has launched a mobile app in the Apple store in a bid to help its passengers relax while taking off, the airline said in a press release on Wednesday (Dec 17).

The mobile app, named ANA Takeoff Mode, is a puzzle game with relaxing music playing in the background, it said. Users will have to manoeuvre a ball on screen to collect points, added ANA.

According to the airline, the mobile app also measures the amplitude and frequency of the ambient noise inside the aircraft cabin. The audio profile will trigger an animation and message for the user when the aircrafts engines are at full throttle during takeoff, it said.

ANA added that the app is one of the first mobile apps to be developed under the US Department of Transportations Federal Aviation Administrations announcement in 2013, that airlines can safely expand passengers' use of portable electronic devices during all phases of flight.

It is important to ANA that we pay attention to every single detail to ensure a comfortable and enjoyable flight for all our passengers. We hope that it will help to ease and relax flyers, allowing them to enjoy their flight with ANA, said general manager of ANAs Singapore office and vice president of marketing and sales in Asia, Mr Mitsuo Tomita.

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ANA launches mobile app to calm passengers during takeoff

TINASHE Kachingwe's inescapable "2 On" was one of the defining songs of 2014, and her unpredictably smoky Aquarius, was the year's best R&B album as well.

A fledgling perfectionist whose label let her take her time with her debut, the former child actress has managed to get along with collaborators as disparate as Nick Jonas, Calvin Harris and, um, Charlie Sheen.

SPIN caught up with the 21-year-old over the phone to learn how much hard work goes into making such relaxing music, and how she spent the best year of her life thus far.

Aquarius was two years in the making, what kind of strings did you have to pull to get people off your back about rushing it?

I was lucky to have a label that wanted to make sure when I presented my debut that I felt I was ready. They never put that much pressure on me to hurry or to rush. The most pressure came from myself, because obviously I was ready to move to the next chapter of my life. I wanted to put something out that was amazing and I had to take time until it was really ready.

Is it true that you didn't listen to any outside music while you were working on it?

Well, not any. [Laughs.] I listened to music at the end of the day. I'm always trying to discover new stuff in magazines, blogs. But when I was doing the album, I didn't focus on that as much I was really more into creating my own.

What would you put on at the end of the day?

I was trying to go back to my old school taste. Like, I always listened to Sade, Janet Jackson, Michael Jackson. People my parents played in the house growing up I always come back to that.

I love how Aquarius bridges different eras of R&B with current sounds. Like "2 On" reminds me of a lot of millennial jams, like "AM to PM."

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Finally getting the respect she has earned ... Tinashe Kachingwe performing