In honor of Labor Day, we have the story of one of the hardest working symbols around; the @ sign, that we use when we email and when we tweet. William Allman is the author of “The Accidental History of the @ Symbol,” in this month’s Smithsonian magazine. He offers some interesting tidbits on the @ symbol.

Computer security experts are ringing alarms about Java. Nope. Not the coffee. Java the piece of software that you probably have on your computer. Turns out, Java has some pretty major security flaws that hackers can and are exploiting. Plus, we take a look at the future at the IFA trade show, a consumer electronics show in Berlin going on now.

So just how much privacy can you expect for your Twitter account? That’s the question in an ongoing New York lawsuit involving an Occupy Wall Street activist named Malcolm Harris. He was charged with disorderly conduct. Prosecutors want access to his tweets. This week, Twitter appealed a ruling that it had to hand them over. So where do privacy rights begin and end with social networking sites like Twitter?

Know how you have to turn off your Kindle when you’re on a plane, at least when you take off and land? The FAA is asking for public comment on those rules. There are two ways digital devices cause problems — one through radio frequency and one through Wi-Fi frequency. Is one worse than the other? Are either harmful?

There’s a flood of new smartphones and tablets coming on the market. Microsoft, Amazon, Nokia, Samsung and Apple are all reportedly gearing up for fall releases. Part of deciding which one to buy is about who has the better apps. Turns out Apple’s patent win over Samsung could affect the answer to that question — especially for Android app developers.

Samsung’s devices will have to start looking and acting differently. That’s after jurors handed Apple a billion dollar win over Samsung on Friday, in a game-changing patent lawsuit. So what does this mean for consumers? There will be changes to how the devices work, which will will affect even the apps you can use. It got us wondering whether we’d see the real-life introduction of the Pyramid tablet, from the TV show The Office.

Mitt Romney has announced a new energy plan he says will lead to greater energy independence if he’s elected. The plan calls for states to have greater authority to allow drilling on federal lands within their borders. What would that drilling mean for those lands? Drilling technology has made huge leaps forward, but it’s still drilling and still has impact.

A group of consumer advocate organizations has filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission, alleging that several companies, including McDonald’s and General Mills, are violating the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. There are concerns about email swapping among children, and what happens to the children’s email addresses that are collected by companies. And for the most part, children aren’t aware of the security issues that come with browsing the Internet.

Any computer hooked up to the Internet is a potential victim of malicious hackers. Of course, it’s one thing to be hacked on a desktop PC, it’s quite another to be hacked in your car, traveling at 70 miles an hour, with a computer that controls your brakes and steering. It’s not time to freak out — yet. But automakers and security experts will have to learn to evolve faster than the bad guys.