iWorld
Yahoo announces contest for Apple Music Festival in September
MUMBAI: Yahoo India has announced a contest that will give music fans the exclusive chance to travel to London for the 2015 Apple Music Festival in September.
To participate, fans need to start a blog on Tumblr, create as many music-related posts as they like and register for the contest. Given that Tumblr lets you effortlessly share anything, these posts can be in any format – audio, photo, video, gif, links or a quote. Whether it’s singing a tune, grooving to one or writing a song, participants need to showcase their creative best. The contest closes at 23:59 hours, IST, 9 September 2015.
Five contestants with the most creative, imaginative Tumblr blogs that show plenty of music love, will win the chance to fly (with a friend) to London for the closing night of the Apple Music Festival on September 28.
Pharrell Williams, One Direction, Florence + The Machine and Disclosure are among the headliners at this year’s Festival, which includes ten nights of spectacular live shows at London’s historic Roundhouse venue. Get ready for all the action at this year’s Apple Music Festival with a selection of incredible live performances from years past at www.applemusic.com/festival
Stay updated with the latest news on Apple Music Festival, with exclusive content on Yahoo India Celebrity.
iWorld
Meta plans 8,000 layoffs in new AI-led restructuring wave
First phase from May 20 may cut 10 per cent workforce amid AI pivot.
MUMBAI: At Meta, the future may be artificial but the cuts are very real. The social media giant is reportedly preparing a fresh round of layoffs, with an initial wave expected to impact around 8,000 employees as it doubles down on its artificial intelligence ambitions. According to a Reuters report, the first phase of job cuts is slated to begin on May 20, targeting roughly 10 per cent of Meta’s global workforce. With nearly 79,000 employees on its rolls as of December 31, the move marks one of the company’s most significant workforce reductions in recent years.
And this may only be the beginning. Sources indicate that additional layoffs are being planned for the second half of the year, although the scale and timing remain fluid, likely to be shaped by how Meta’s AI capabilities evolve in the coming months. Earlier reports had suggested that total cuts in 2026 could reach 20 per cent or more of its workforce.
The restructuring comes as chief executive Mark Zuckerberg continues to steer the company towards an AI-first operating model, committing hundreds of billions of dollars to the transition. Internally, this shift is already visible: teams within Reality Labs have been reorganised, engineers have been moved into a newly formed Applied AI unit, and a Meta Small Business division has been created to align with broader structural changes.
The trend is hardly isolated. Across the tech sector, companies are trimming headcount while investing aggressively in automation. Amazon, for instance, has reportedly cut around 30,000 corporate roles nearly 10 per cent of its white-collar workforce citing efficiency gains driven by AI. Data from Layoffs.fyi shows over 73,000 tech employees have already lost jobs this year, compared with 153,000 in all of 2024.
For Meta, the move echoes its earlier “year of efficiency” in 2022–23, when about 21,000 roles were eliminated amid slowing growth and market pressures. This time, however, the backdrop is different. The company is financially stronger, generating over $200 billion in revenue and $60 billion in profit last year, with shares up 3.68 per cent year-to-date though still below last summer’s peak.
That contrast underlines the shift underway. These layoffs are less about survival and more about reinvention. As Meta restructures itself around AI from autonomous coding agents to advanced machine learning systems, the question is no longer whether the company will change, but how many roles will be left unchanged when it does.
