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Teen student texter busts 20-second tongue-twisty SMS barrier

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The nimblest texting fingers on the planet belong to a 15-year-old US student named Gaurav Sharma.

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Sharma has landed a Guinness World Record for typing a 25-word text message on a touchscreen of a mobile phone by writing his message in just 18.44 seconds.

That message:

The razor-toothed piranhas of the genera Serrasalmus and Pygocentrus are the most ferocious freshwater fish in the world. In reality they seldom attack a human.

Sharma achieved his feat using a Windows Phone running version 8.1 with his record-breaking effort taking place in the the cafeteria of Microsoft Research on the main campus in Redmond, Washington, on 16 January, 2014.

Microsoft Research corporate vice president Peter Lee told Twitter on Thursday morning the Guinness World Record certificate had just arrived.

The record has been in play since at least the mid-2000s, when the 2004 record going to Kimberly Yeo with a time of 43.24 seconds.

Franklin Page in the US set a brand-new record of 35.54 seconds in 2010 using a Windows-based Samsung Omnia II.

Brit Melissa Thompson was thought to have broken this the same year with 25.94 second on a Galaxy S, but it’s not clear if her time is a confirmed record.

Yeo’s record was achieved without use of predictive text. Thompson, apparently, used the Galaxy’s swipe technology to input text without taking your fingers off the keyboard.

Microsoft said Sharma had been helped by Word Flow with shape writing, which will feature in Windows Phone 8.1. Word Flow – like shape writing apps ShapeWriter, SlideIT and Swype – allows you to form a word by drawing a line that connects the letters without needing to take your fingers off the keypad. ®

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