Takeout, Blood, Toothbrushes: Drone Delivery Lands In America

The little aircraft appeared out of the blue sky above a Texas home, deposited its payload of a mid-morning snack in the yard, and zoomed off, as deliveries by drone started becoming a reality in...

The little plane emerged from the blue sky over a Texas home, laid its load of a mid-morning snack in the yard, and then zoomed in, as drone deliveries begin to become a reality in America.

Flying pizza deliveries and birthday presents haven't become the norm that tech leaders predicted,

But the service is available in parts of the United States and government regulations are catching up.

Skeptics question whether drone shootouts can work on a large scale, but proponents argue that they're safer and better for the planet than huge greenhouse gas delivery trucks — and faster.

The package was lowered to the ground from an electric drone flying over Tiffany Buhari's home in Frisco, Texas, and was in her hands minutes after placing an order on a smartphone app.

"On the soda, you can even see condensation on it because it's still cold," she told AFP after the drone took off from the Alphabet-owned wing.

The service was new to the area and kept small, but Wing offered to compare up to 1,000 deliveries per day being made in just one part of Australia's Brisbane metro area.

blood and toothbrush

A handful of companies already have operations underway or will be by the end of the year in parts of Texas, North Carolina or California,

With service providers including Israeli startup Flytrex, Wing, and e-commerce giant Amazon.

In fact, it was Amazon founder Jeff Bezos who in 2013 revealed the drone in an interview with CBS, predicting that within five years airborne shipments would routinely move from fulfillment centers to customers' doors.

It didn't quite turn out that way for a company that would otherwise seep everywhere into aspects of modern life, from live broadcasting and food shopping to healthcare.

When an Amazon drone crashed during testing last year and started a forest fire, it was another setback for the company's faltering drone ambitions.

The business has progressed more steadily for others, and in April, Wing announced what it calls "the first commercial drone delivery service" in a major US metro area: Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas.

The Wing, which also provides delivery services to some areas in Australia and Finland, weighs 2.5 to 3 pounds (just over 1 kilogram).

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