The LG Mobile World Cup was an international competition held on January 14, 2010, by

LG Electronics LG Electronics Inc. () is a South Korean multinational electronics company headquartered in Yeouido-dong, Seoul, South Korea. LG Electronics is a part of LG Corporation, the fourth largest '' chaebol'' in South Korea, and often considered a ...

in which participants competed using their

texting Text messaging, or texting, is the act of composing and sending electronic messages, typically consisting of alphabetic and numeric characters, between two or more users of mobile devices, desktops/laptops, or another type of compatible compute ...

speed and accuracy. It was held at Gotham Hall in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. Thirteen teams representing their countries competed for a total of $130,000

USD The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...

in prize money.

Format

Teams consist of two members. One member competes using a

QWERTY keyboard QWERTY () is a keyboard layout for Latin-script alphabets. The name comes from the order of the first six keys on the top left letter row of the keyboard ( ). The QWERTY design is based on a layout created for the Sholes and Glidden typ ...

, while the other member uses a

numeric keypad A numeric keypad, number pad, numpad, or ten key, is the palm-sized, usually-17-key section of a standard computer keyboard, usually on the far right. It provides calculator-style efficiency for entering numbers. The idea of a 10-key nu ...

. Thirteen countries participated in the 2010 competition:

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...

, and the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. Previously, LG hosted texting competitions in individual countries such as the United States and South Korea. The United States had competitions for 2007, 2008, and 2009. South Korea had competitions in 2008 and 2009. However, 2010 was the first year when countries competed against each other.

Qualification

Teams earned the right to participate in regional qualifiers. Over six million people registered to compete in the tournament. Each team participated in five separate events: "break the wall", "monster popping", "moving pillar", "running relay", and "racing replay". The basic premise was to copy a scrolling piece of text as quickly as possible. No errors were allowed in transcription. All of the text messages were in the native language of the participants, but had the same number of characters in order to ensure fairness. Additionally, all participants had to use the LG enV3, LG BL20 or LG GW520

Results

Ha Mok-min, aged 16, and her partner, 17-year-old Bae Yeong-ho, won first prize in the competition. Mok-min won the national championship, and was able to text at an average of 7.25 characters per second. She signed up for the competition when she noticed a kiosk in the mall, and saw the opportunity to win free movie tickets. Yeong-ho, a high school dropout, signed up in order to obtain money to buy a new car. The second-place finishers were Kate Moore and Morgan Dynda from the United States. The third place team was from Argentina. The prizes were set at US$100,000 per pair for first place, $20,000 per pair for second place and $10,000 per pair for third place.

Records

A side competition was offered to see who could beat the

Guinness Book of World Records ''Guinness World Records'', known from its inception in 1955 until 1999 as ''The Guinness Book of Records'' and in previous United States editions as ''The Guinness Book of World Records'', is a reference book published annually, listing world ...

record for fastest text message sent. This record was broken by Pedro Matias from Portugal. He typed a 264-character text message in 1:59. The record for fastest keystrokes per minute on a numeric keyboard was set by Indonesia at 306, while the most keystrokes per minute record on a QWERTY keyboard was set by South Korea at 357.

References

External links

Official website of the LG Mobile World Cup
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lg Mobile World Cup January 2010 events in the United States Electronics competitions LG Sports 2010 in New York City