Next-generation tracking technology could be in your gadgets soon

Sophisticated tracking technology, the likes of which you might associate with governments or big companies, may soon be in consumers' hands, homes, cars and local stores.

If it works as described -- a big "if," of course, -- the technology developed by a small-but-established UK company called Apical could detect not only people, but determine what they are doing, where they are going and even what they may be thinking. The technology, dubbed Spirit and part of the growing and fast-developing field of computer vision, could be used for everything from helping consumers shoot better videos to helping the local coffee shop improve its sales.