Facebook's new tech might be able to predict its user's next destination

In the future, social media site Facebook might even know where you are going next, as its new series of patent suggests.

Facebook has reportedly filed a patent application named ‘Offline Trajectories’ for a technology that will be able to predict where the user is going ‘based at least in part on previously logged location data’, spotted Buzzfeed News.

The technology will use the users’, as well as other people’s like user’s friends, previously logged location data for making predictions of their next stop. The technology works by determining the users’ current location and then compute for the likeliness about where they will go next. If it determines where the user is heading, it will then pre-load the News Feed for them, explained Engadget.

The social network could also rely on other users’ location data for predicting user’s movements, especially those with the same profile. Another patent entitled ‘Location Prediction Using Wireless Signals on Online Social Networks’ was also filed explaining about a technology that will use the strength of Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, cellular and NFC signals.

If people of the same age as the user generally visit a set of particular locations in one outing, the technology can make predictions based on that behavior. For instance, if people with similar profile after watching a movie go to a coffee shop located next to the theater, Facebook will predict that the user will go to the same coffee shop after the movie as well.

Technologies like these can also be used to provide users with relevant ads based on their locations, along with being able to use that information to show business that their ad targeting works, hence encouraging them to spend more.

However, there is no surety that the patent will ever be implanted. A spokesperson told Buzzfeed News, “We often seek patents for technology we never implement, and patent applications - such as this one -should not be taken as an indication of future plans.”