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Carpool Karaoke debuts August 8

Apple today announced Carpool Karaoke: The Series will be available to Apple Music subscribers starting Tuesday, August 8. The show will feature many of today’s biggest names in music, television, film, sports and pop culture buckling up and belting out their favorite songs for a road trip filled with comedy, conversation and music.

I’m hoping they can pull this off because what James Corden did was really special.

Google Street View’s 10th Birthday

Street View started out as Larry Page’s far-fetched idea to create a 360-degree map of the world. Today, 10 years after the first imagery was published in Street View, people can scale mountains, dive into the depths of the ocean, scout out ramen spots, and walk through museums in far corners of the world.

That was a pretty far-fetched idea, but it is cool.

Uber fires former Google engineer in self-driving car case

Uber has long denied the accusations. But when Mr. Levandowski was ordered by a federal judge to hand over evidence and testimony to that end, he asserted his Fifth Amendment rights, seeking to avoid possible criminal charges, according to his lawyers. Uber has been unable to convince Mr. Levandowski to cooperate.

Oh boy.

Here’s a great name for a tablet: iPad

Ryonghung, a North Korean technology company, recently announced a new tablet. It looks a lot like the weird, firewalled computers the country has produced in the past, with the addition of one curious new feature: the name. It’s called… the iPad.

I have no idea how Apple is even supposed to fight this one.

The Talk Show

I had such a great time chatting with John Gruber on his latest episode of The Talk Show.

Pixelmator Team tease a brand new Mac app

This is the biggest thing that we’ve ever done. The most innovative, beautiful and powerful thing that we’ve ever done. And it’s also the most Mac thing that we’ve ever done! This is what the legendary Pixelmator Team has been secretly and incredibly passionately working on for 5 whole years.

This totally caught my attention today. I love the folks at Pixelmator and the great apps they make, so if they’ve been working on something this long, you know it’s going to be big.

Android creator Andy Rubin makes new smartphone

The Essential Phone, brought to us by the person who created Android, is finally ready for the spotlight. It’s an incredibly audacious and ambitious project, with an outlandish screen and the beginnings of a modular ecosystem.

Rubin has been trying to one-up Apple for years but could never quite pull it off. We’ll see how this works out, but I suspect once Apple outlines its next iOS and iPhone hardware later this year, interest in Rubin’s “Essential Phone” will wane.

Watch “The Doctor, The Tornado & The Kentucky Kid” for free

The Kentucky Kid of the title is Nicky Hayden who tragically lost his life last week after being struck by a car while out training on a bicycle. The movie is quite dated but does give a good sense of what professional motorcycle racing is all about.

A year of Google & Apple maps

Some very interesting and very geeky comparisons between the two mapping services. I can confirm what he says about TomTom. My motorcycle GPS is a TomTom and frankly, it’s often not very good.

Letter Opener: Open Winmail.dat, MSG and XPS files

Thanks to Letter Opener for sponsoring The Loop this week.

Letter Opener for macOS

Working together with Windows users shouldn’t be problematic at all. Still, some email messages can not be natively read by the Mac and are packed into Winmail.dat or MSG files that have to be extracted and displayed somehow. Letter Opener for macOS does that with a simple double-click!

Letter Opener for macOS Mail

The plugin to stop the Winmail.dat file flood for good.

If Winmail.dat files are a reoccurring problem, Letter Opener for macOS Mail is the solution. Installed into Mail it opens and displays the files directly inside Apples Mail application, so the user can forget about Winmail.dat files entirely.

Use coupon code ROCKET88 for 30% off Letter Opener for macOS Mail.

Walt Mossberg’s last column

This is my last weekly column for The Verge and Recode — the last weekly column I plan to write anywhere. I’ve been doing these almost every week since 1991, starting at The Wall Street Journal, and during that time, I’ve been fortunate enough to get to know the makers of the tech revolution, and to ruminate — and sometimes to fulminate — about their creations.

Cheers, Walt!

Jony Ive appointed Chancellor of the Royal College of Art

Sir Jony succeeds Sir James Dyson OM, Provost of the College (2011–17), as this key honorary role is renamed. The Chancellor is head of the College, presiding over meetings of the Court, a member of its governing body, Council, and conferring degrees at Convocation. Baroness Gail Rebuck remains Chair of Council and becomes Pro-Chancellor of the university. The posts of Chancellor and Pro-Chancellor are non-salaried.

Congrats, Jony.