Many of you remember Jot as the character recognition software that's the basis of Graffiti 2 in the Palm OS. Well, there's a new Jott in town. Not only is this Jott is spelled differently and for RIM's BlackBerry smartphones, it converts your voice rather than lines drawn with a stylus into text.

Developed by Jott Networks, Jott is the brainchild of a pair of former Microsoft executives who sought to find a cure for thumb fatigue and what they call "Terse Reply Syndrome." So the point of Jott is to allow BlackBerry users to safely (say, while driving) and conveniently reply to incoming e-mail messages verbally.

Once you've successfully installed Jott, a "Jott for BlackBerry" option appears in your BlackBerry's normal e-mail reply menu. Simply select "Reply with Jott" and speak your message to have it converted to text and sent to an intended recipient.

On the eve of this week’s CTIA Wireless show in Las Vegas, Jott Network's made a free beta of the voice-to-text technology to those with a Jott account who point their BlackBerry browser to www.jott.com/bb.

Jott Networks CEO John Pollard asserts "Jott can dramatically increase the speed and richness of replying to e-mail, and frees up time for other things."

In fact, sending text messages or e-mail using your voice is up to three times faster than thumbing them out on a phone keyboard, according time trial studies run by the company.

This version of Jott is compatible with RIM's BlackBerry 8800, 7100, Curve and Pearl series of smartphones. It works with all major wireless carriers in the U.S. and Canada.

With a Jott account you can also verbally add items to your Google Calendar from a phone or smartphone, as well as search results from Amazon, the price of a house on Zillow, and contact data remotely.