programatically start/stop charging

In Windows 8 is there a way to programatically control charging the laptop battery?

I.e, I have my laptop always connected to the power source. I have heard that keeping the battery charged between 40-60% of its capacity increases battery life. Also, I heard fully charging a battery and keeping it always connected to a power source might bring its life down.

I currently manually unplug the power cord to mnage this. is there a way I could write a small app to programatically control this in Win 8? or is this purely a hardware thingy? i know Toyota does it to its hybrid batteries. ie. it keeps the hybrid battery charged between 40-60%.

thanks