13-Year-Old Pennsylvania Teen Wins $25,000 Prize in New York Text-Messaging Contest OMG! Thirteen-year-old Morgan Pozgar, of Claysburg, Pa., was crowned LG National Texting champion on Saturday after she typed "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" from "Mary Poppins" in 15 seconds. "I'm going to go shopping and buy lots of clothes," the teen said after winning her $25,000 prize from the electronics company LG. Morgan defeated nearly 200 other competitors at the Roseland Ballroom in Manhattan to become East Coast champion and then beat West Coast champion Eli Tirosh, 21, of Los Angeles. She estimated that she sends more than 8,000 text messages a month to her friends and family. www.cellular-news.com/story/23319.php
If the kid, or her parents had a clue, they'd put the money in savings for her college tuition... But let's not worry about the child's future, let's only worry about the here and now... ~*Ash*~
Was she using T9 or iTAP? I don't think she can touch that money until he's 18, right? They just put it on a bank for now in her name.
I looked into entering this competition, and had it not been on the coasts, probably would have, and you could not use any type of predictive text... ~*Ash*~
Even if you could use T9/iTap, I think it would take you longer to type something like "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious." The phone's prediction dictionary would make you waste too much time. Frankly, I don't see how the hell you can do that word in 15 seconds on a phone. If two sequential letters are on the same key, you have to wait for the phone to settle the first letter before you can type the next letter and that makes you waste a whole second each time it happens. In that word, it happens two times. supercalifragilisticexpialidocious So with 34 letters to enter, she did an average of 2.27 letters per second! (or one letter every 0.44 seconds!) And if we take into account the delay added by those two instances where more than one letter is on the same key, then she did 2.61 letters per second (or one letter every 0.38 seconds). Now, do we know what kind of phone they were using? Because if she was using a Treo, then I can see this being more doable because with a full QWERTY keyboard, there is no problem with more than one letter on the same key causing delays.
The contest was sponsered by LG, and they used the ENV Phones which are equipped with a full keyboard. Which essentially makes it just a typing competition as far as I can see... ~*Ash*~
As an owner of the enV I would have to agree with ya on this. The enV is hands down best phone that I have used for texting on.
Just because the keyboard is different doesn't make much of a difference IMO except that a full QWERTY keyboard is much easier to text on. If all of the contestants in the contest were using the same mobile handset, then the winner didn't have any more of an advantage over the other ones. I can still type much faster on a regular sized keyboard then I can using my enV.
Oh please, she got to use an enV. I want to see a texting contest on a standard phone with no QWERTY keypad and no T9.
I probably could have done it in 2004 on my Moto Timeport which doesn't have any kind of predictive text. I got very good at typing, I knew exactly which keys did what and, most of the time, didn't have to look at the keypad or display. I knew how many times to hit which key to get punctuation, etc. Now, the T9 on my PEBL has made me laaaaaaazy. Come to think of it, I never used predictive text on my v620 and, frankly, I didn't know if it had T9. I don't think it's fair that she got to use a full QWERTY keypad, I think you need to use a standard keypad with no predictive text in order for it to be a full on "texting" contest... but that's just me. Ash, I think she should maybe get $500 or $1000 now, since she did win the contest and then her parents should put the rest in savings for college.
I'll agree with that. The girl should get to have a little fun, but at that age she doesn't have a concept of what that money could be used for, other than a few new outfits at Abercrombie... On the other topic, I never use T9. Never have, it annoys me. I still type out everything, and have the precise timing down of when I can type the 2nd character if they're on the same key, punctuation, etc. ~*Ash*~
I read an interview with her mom where she said she was going to let the kid have some fun with some of the money but put the bulk of it into a college fund.
