Event shows how nanotechnology influences lives

ALBANY - The battle for the region’s first-ever speed texting champion came down to two teenage sisters.

“Crap,” whispered Alyssa Rotella nervously, as she turned around to face her dad. “I didn’t include a comma!”

Rotella, 17, was the frontrunner of the competition. She had come in first place during the previous round, which narrowed the field of competitors from 10 to five. And she had an actual keyboard on her phone, as opposed to the rest of the smartphone users in the Top Five using touch screen keypads.

In order to win the final round, the contestants had to text the following without error or abbreviations: What was the first text message, sent in 1992? “Merry Christmas ”

It turned out that Alyssa’s 15-year-old sister, Brianna Rotella, didn’t forget the comma. She was declared winner of the 2012 NanoText Competition on Saturday, hosted by the University at Albany’s College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering as part of NANOvember, a month-long educational outreach to showcase the emerging science of nanotechnology.

Read More