Cruise has been testing its self-driving vehicles in Houston since May, and it started giving employees, along with select friends and family members, fully driverless rides in August. Now, it's offering the public the chance to catch a ride to their destinations on robotaxis with no drivers behind the wheel. The company is now onboarding Houston residents who signed up for its waitlist, and it's also encouraging those who've yet to do so to visit its website and send in a request for access. Those who do get in early will be able to hail a driverless ride through its app for a flat fare of $5 for a limited time. Initially, Cruise will have the authority to operate seven days a week from 9PM to 6AM only in Downtown, Midtown, East Downtown, Montrose, Hyde Park and River Oaks neighborhoods.

Terrorist gangs smuggling Iranian missiles and drugs in the Middle East will soon have a fleet of 100 robo-ships hunting them down, Britain's most senior military commander in the Gulf has revealed. The new naval force, made up of drones that can operate around the clock, will be up and running by the summer, claimed Commodore Adrian Fryer. It comes as the top officer insisted he remained'alive' to the ever-present threat posed by Iran after a series of recent stand-offs, with the Commodore calling the Middle Eastern state the'main destabilising country' in the region. A small number of the unmanned vessels currently operating in the Gulf are already proving their worth, gathering invaluable data and information that's helping Royal Navy warships cut off smuggling routes and ambush gangs at sea. During the past 12 months, frigate HMS Montrose has seized her biggest haul of narcotics in its three years in the Gulf, bagging a whopping £46.8 million, bringing the ship's total during its time in the Middle East to a staggering £111.1 million.