The drone-delivery service beating Amazon to your front door

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Sandy Button of Pea Ridge, Ark., was born in 1952, grew up watching black-and-white television, and got her first computer in the 1980s. Now? She makes half a dozen orders a week on her smartphone, and minutes later packages come from the sky.

“It’s so cool," says Button, who has worked as the city clerk for 48 years. “It’s like something out of the future, but I guess we are the future." This modern-day manna from heaven, including takeout meals and treats for neighborhood kids, is enabled by drone delivery startup Zipline. A dark horse in the flying delivery race—competitors include Amazon and Google parent Alphabet—has emerged as a front-runner.

Last week it pulled back the curtain on its system to bring what it calls “teleportation" to backyards, driveways and parking lots across the U.S. What cheap, ubiquitous drone delivery could enable is mind-boggling. No more soggy fries delivered in two-ton vehicles by humans.

No more last-minute trips to the store. And seniors and people with disabilities could have increased independence, with easier access to medications and other necessities on short notice. For now, initial commercial testing in the U.S.

is happening in Pea Ridge and Mesquite, Texas, just outside Dallas. Walmart is the only retail operation Zipline delivers for in the U.S. at present.

For future partners, Zipline has designed a small pickup kiosk that can be installed just outside any building. The company will also soon be delivering for Chipotle, and has signed contracts with dozens of other retailers, restaurants and health systems. Alphabet’s Wing drone service is already in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, delivering from 18 Walmarts to 40 nearby towns and cities within