Tech Digest daily roundup: Space X will continue funding Starlink in Ukraine

Elon Musk says his rocket firm SpaceX will continue funding its Starlink internet service in Ukraine, a day after he said it could no longer do so. “The hell with it… Even though Starlink is still losing money & other companies are getting billions of taxpayer $, we’ll just keep funding Ukraine govt for free,” he tweeted. Starlink has been vital for Ukraine’s military and people to stay online.  Ukraine says it helped to reboot key infrastructure after Russian attacks. Energy installations were among facilities targeted by more than 100 Russian missiles this week. Starlink consists of thousands of satellites in low-Earth orbit and ground terminals. BBC 

Cancer vaccines could be accessible to patients within the next decade, the husband and wife team behind one of the most successful Covid jabs has said. German couple Professors Ugur Sahin and Ozlem Tureci said they are hesitant to say they can find a cure for cancer, but that they have had “breakthroughs” they will keep working on. They said the development and success of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine against Covid-19 which became widely rolled out in the pandemic “gives back to our cancer work”. Yahoo!

China’s electric vehicle startups are defying the venture capital winter. While the country is leading a global contraction in VC investment, its auto sector has taken the top spot for funding so far this year, with more than 147 deals amounting to $5.95 billion, according to data from research firm Preqin. Much of that has been from capital flowing into EVs, with batteries and semiconductors — two other high-growth sectors in the new-energy vehicle chain — in fourth and fifth place. All three have logged more deals than last year, while fundraising for once-hot industries like internet businesses, education and real estate have fallen off a cliff. Bloomberg

Apple is running out of months to get its 2022 iPad Pros launched actually in 2022, but they’re said to be arriving “in a matter of days” – and Apple is also said to be working on a new role for all of its iPad tablets. This comes from the usually reliable Mark Gurman at Bloomberg(opens in new tab), who says the refreshed 11-inch and 12.9-inch iPad Pros are going to be running the latest Apple M2 processor for a performance boost of around 20%. The design is said to be similar to the current 11-inch iPad Pro and 12.9-inch iPad Pro. Tech Radar 

Never mind Samsung or Motorola or the Chinese crowd; Google is running its own race when it comes to foldable phones. Intelligence has been pointing to a long autumn and winter of waiting with the company targeting a late Q1 2023 launch window for a prospective Pixel Fold. We’re now learning more about exactly what we’re waiting for with details of the displays the phone will use. Noted leaks blogger Kuba Wojciechowski tells 91Mobiles that the folding display will span 123 × 148mm with a resolution of 1840 × 2208. Android Police

Spotify HiFi was announced all the way back in February 2021, and although we have heard very little about it in the meantime, it now looks as though a launch of a higher-quality tier called Platinum is now imminent. An individual who had canceled Spotify got in touch with 9to5Mac(opens in new tab) to say that the email encouraging him to resubscribe mentioned a Spotify Platinum plan for $19.99 a month (twice the standard price). That Platinum plan included a mention of Spotify HiFi. Tech Radar