Taiwanese firm Action Electronics has pushed the boundary of taste to its limits in an ad for its new Android tablet, the Action Pad.

Taiwanese comedian/impersonator Ah-Ken features in the advert dressed in Jobs’ iconic black turtleneck sweater, blue jeans and white trainers, but also features a set of angel wings and a halo.

Ah-Ken is seen striding across a dark stage with a familiar looking chair and table set up to one side and at the end of the ad exclaims “Thank God I finally get to play other tablets”.

Clever PR or crass stupidity?

It seems surprisingly bold to take such a well known and loved figure and produce a clearly controversial advert.

Not only does the advert poke fun at Jobs’ passing with angel wings and halo on Ah-Ken, it also mocks Jobs’ unwavering allegiance to Apple showing him promoting and enjoying an Android device.

This will surely ruffle some feathers especially in the Apple camp, so has Action Electronics gone a step too far or is does this ad still fall into the realms of acceptable satire?

YouTube : www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeXXwQrQiPE

Android Developers are being reminded by Google to shift their attention away from the Menu button and focus instead on the Action Bar.

The Menu button function is commonplace in pre-3.0 versions of Google’s Android operating system. It allows users to view options for a particular application by pressing the Menu button on their device.

With the introduction of Honeycomb (version 3.0) and now Ice Cream Sandwich (version 4.0) the function has become redundant as these operating systems remove the need for physical buttons.

All change please

This year we expect to see a new wave of devices running Ice Cream Sandwich, so developers need to make sure they update their apps to use the Action Bar.

Developers need to follow the new Android user experience as many Android devices are expected in 2012 to feature button free designs.

Apps will continue to work on the new software, with Google building an action overflow button which acts as the menu button.

The action overflow button will display on all applications which have not been updated to Android 3.0+, even if they do not require it.

Are you all for button free devices, or will you be pining for your menu, home and back buttons?

Google unveiled its tablet-specific Android 3.0 OS at CES to a flurry of excitement thanks to some pretty exciting new tablet-focused additions to the already impressive OS.

But, with a preview of the SDK only just released to developers, we won’t be seeing Honeycomb on our Android tablets for a little while; in the meantime, whet your appetite with our round-up of the key new features.

There’ll be 3D-effect graphics

You can’t swing a cat without hitting something 3D (literally) in the tech world these days, and Google knows it. Honeycomb offers developers the opportunity to use high-performance 3D graphics which should offer no noticeable lag, even with the extra rendering required.

This means we’ll see 3D creeping into our apps, wallpapers and carousels as the developers get to grips with the extra dimension. Read the full story