Coronavirus fears are spreading, but it's opening up options for disruptive technology to show its stuff in the wake of the outbreak. A team in Boston Children's Hospital is implementing machine learning to sift through copious amounts of online news, including social posts, news reports, data from official public health channels and information supplied by doctors to track the coronavirus. "There's incredible data that's locked away in various tools like online news sites, social media, crowdsourcing, data sources, that you wouldn't think of that would be used for public health," said Dr. John Brownstein, chief innovation officer at Boston Children's Hospital. "But actually they have incredible amounts of information that you wouldn't find in any sort of traditional government system." "Whether it's social media, online news reports, blogs, chat rooms -- we're looking for clues about symptoms, reports of disease, that tell us something unique is happening," said Brownstein.

Can artificial intelligence (AI) determine that you want to order a dark roast coffee with a splash of almond milk and one packet of sugar? It could be heading that directions as coffeehouse chain Starbucks is looking to utilize AI to open up additional avenues to sales. Per a Motley Fool report, Starbucks is partnering with Microsoft to use data to enhance the customer service experience. "As an engineering and technology organization, one of the areas we are incredibly excited to be pursuing is using data to continuously improve the experience for our customers and partners," said Starbucks chief technology officer Gerri Martin-Flickinger. When a customer uses the Starbucks mobile app, it uses previous orders as data to determine their beverage preferences based on local stores and even offer recommendations.

When it comes to investing in transformational technology, exchange-traded fund (ETF) investors shouldn't look further than artificial intelligence (AI). It's certainly something that Japanese holdings company SoftBank is focusing on in the future. "Within 30 years, definitely, things will be flying," said SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son. "Things will be running much faster without accident. We will be living much longer, much healthier. The diseases that we could not solve in the past will be cured."

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