As smartphones and tablets evolve, they get faster and gain more features. However, there is one place where they are still lagging -- battery life. Many devices still require daily charging. Not only is this annoying, it is dangerous too. After all, you cannot call 911 from a dead phone.

While some newer devices such as the Droid Maxx and iPad Air are class-leading in battery longevity, people still want more. A good way to increase battery life is to avoid using apps that suck your battery like vampires. Today, KS Mobile announces its list of the top 10 Android vampire apps.

Earlier this week, Nokia announced a line of Android-based smartphones with a combination of Nokia/Microsoft services replacing Google services. While some industry observers were quick to praise this move, there are many unknowns about the goal of this strategy.

In my opinion, Microsoft is following one or more of four possible game plans.

AVG has announced plans to discontinue its LiveKive cloud-based backup and sync service for Windows and Macs. The decision is unsurprising -- thanks to underwhelming reviews and fierce competition, it appears AVG has decided to concentrate its efforts on its core security products.

Existing LiveKive users won’t be cut adrift immediately, however: the service will continue as normal until April, and data won’t actually be deleted until August.

I was a beta tester for Papa Sangre II, the excellent audio-only game for iOS (if you’ve yet to try it I can whole-heartedly recommend it -- Sean Bean stars) and am a massive fan of Zombies Run, an audio fitness app, that you listen to while running and which takes place following a zombie apocalypse.

So naturally, the news that Papa Sangre’s creators Somethin' Else are working on a zombie-based audio-only first person shooter has me in a heightened state of excitement.

AndrOpen Office -- "the world’s first port of OpenOffice for Android" -- has been updated to version 1.43 with the addition of some very welcome touch-friendliness.

New support for scrolling with a swipe means navigation is much easier. This build also supports zooming in and out by pinching.

It looks like every company that desperately wants to be in the spotlight -- or win some kitsch award -- is trying to do it by unveiling something in gold. Well, congrats, Alchaemy, you most definitely are the latest winner.

The company took the wraps off a 24 karat gold Mac Pro, that is part of its Shyne series. As if Apple's new powerhouse is not expensive enough, starting at $2,999, be prepared to spend an additional $1597.99 (because, probably $1600 sounded too expensive) to customize it in this trim. Some would say the Mac Pro looks like a trash can. Well, thanks to Alchaemy, you can now make it look like a gold trash can.

Even though Windows Phone is definitely making inroads and is considered to be the fastest-growing smartphone operating system, in 2013 its market share came in at less than 4 percent, according to research firms IDC and Strategy Analytics. Consumers are (still) much in love with Android smartphones and iPhones, giving Windows Phone too little attention.

In its latest smartphone market forecast, IDC claims that Windows Phone will still lurk in the shadows four years from now, as its market share in 2018 is estimated to climb to just seven percent. Shipments of devices running the tiled mobile OS are expected to reach 121.8 million units, which would be a huge improvement over the roughly 35 million units in 2013, but still not nearly enough to catch up to Apple's iPhones or Android smartphones, which shipments IDC estimates will reach 249.6 and 1,321.1 million units, respectively.

Not to date myself, but when I was growing up, technology consisted of TV and radio. A large part of that TV, aside from Gilligan's Island reruns, was PBS content. Apparently that experience gave me good preparation for my educational start in life, or at least that is what a new survey claims.

A study conducted by the Public Broadcast System reveals that parents of children aged between two and six think that both media and technology is an important factor in preparing children for elementary school. Unsurprisingly, PBS was revealed to be one the top choices.

We reported earlier this week on how financial organizations are at risk from third parties with compromised security.

It seems that the same thing applies to software. The latest review by IT security specialist Secunia shows that third-party programs are responsible for 76 percent of the vulnerabilities discovered in the 50 most popular programs in 2013.

Last week we wrote about PNGmini, a useful tool which can cut PNG file sizes without any loss in image quality.

Developer Voralent has now released JPGmini 1.0, which applies similar lossless compression technology to crunch down your JPEGs. (No relation to the commercial JPEGmini, apparently. We predict Voralent will be hearing from them soon.)

The Galaxy S5 is Samsung's latest Android flagship, launching in April in 150 countries across the globe. Even though we are more than a month away from the official release, some mobile operators are already giving prospective buyers the option to register their interest in the new smartphone.

US mobile operator T-Mobile is among them. Its landing page for the Galaxy S5 gives folks the possibility to be among the first to find out "all the amazing details" on Samsung's new device, and, each day, the chance to win a Galaxy S5 with the S-View Flip Cover. The prize definitely adds to the appeal of filling those boxes, with T-Mobile announcing record pre-registrations.

Supercomputer maker Cray has reported record revenue for 2013 and is moving into new markets.

Moves towards big data, simulations, predictive modeling and other applications have increased demand for the company's products beyond its traditional base of large corporations and government bodies.

When Microsoft was forced to change the name of its cloud storage from SkyDrive, many people thought it was unfair -- myself included. After all, SkyTV is an entirely different product. But oh well, what's done is done. Truth be told, I like the OneDrive name better; it was a blessing in disguise.

By default, the service comes with 7 GB -- more than enough for the average user to store documents. However, users can get an additional 3 GB for enabling auto-backup for pictures on their mobile device. Today though, Microsoft announces a way to get a 100GB for free, with Bing Rewards. That is a lot of space!

On April 8, 2014, Microsoft will officially end support for Windows XP. After that date, users of the aging OS will no longer receive new security updates, hotfixes, support options, or online technical content updates.

Obviously the tech giant is worried about the dangers than might befall XP users who continue to cling on to the decade-and-a-bit old OS after that date, and that’s the reason for all the blog posts that have been appearing lately. I mean, sure, it looks like Microsoft is cynically using the death of XP support purely to try and persuade people to upgrade to Windows 8.1 but that’s not the case, honestly. Oh, okay, maybe it is. A bit.

Chickens and eggs are pains in the butt. No, not the actual bird and its ovum, but the causality dilemma. The old argument asks if a chicken or egg came first. Of course, both answers are a dilemma as you need a chicken to lay an egg and you need an egg to get a chicken.

This applies to computer platforms and apps too. People may choose to buy an Android or iOS device because there are a lot of apps. Developers make the apps because a lot of people choose the platform. So, how can a new platform get apps if no one develops for it? In other words, if you don't have users, you wont get apps and if you don't have apps, you won't get users. In an effort to get developers interested in its mobile platform, Canaonical announces the third edition of Ubuntu App Showdown contest.