Speech Recognition - Ready for Prime Time?

Movies have always featured computers that perform actions based on user voice commands. Although voice interfaces are still not common place in homes today, for many years software has been available for speech recognition. Anandtech has posted an intresting article, discussing all aspects of speed recognition software currently available for computers. Issues such as health consideration, software products, speech accuracy, and processor utilization are explained in detail.

Why does any of this really matter? I mean, we're all basically familiar with using keyboards and mice, and they seem to get the job done quite well. Certainly, it's difficult to imagine speech recognition becoming the preferred way of playing games. (Well, some types of games at least.) There are also people in the world that can type at 140 wpm or faster -- wouldn't they just be slowed down by trying to dictate to the computer instead of typing?