Just call her Dr. Alexa. Have you come down with a cold? Alexa will know, just by automatically analyzing your speech and voice data. Then she might suggest you order some soup, cough drops or even medicine. She can then have them shipped to your home in an hour.

Alexa can't do this yet, but she may be able to soon thanks to new technology Amazon just patented. Amazon's "voice-based determination of physical and emotional characteristics of users" patent reveals the tech giant's growing interest in healthcare.

Amazon isn't the only company interested in leveraging consumers' biometric data. Walmart just applied for a patent last week that would capture shoppers' health data through shopping cart handles.

Please select this link to read the complete article from Inc.