HANOI, VIETNAM - Media OutReach - 16 September 2020 - Last weekend, in the framework of the online event "Artificial Intelligence Day 2020 - Far-reaching to Take on the Challenge", VinAI Research Institute (a member of Vingroup) announced two AI technologies including VCam Kristal (AI photography technology for cameras under display) and VSound Alto (noise filtering technology). Pioneering AI technologies enable the realisation of ultimate infinity display experience, and make VinSmart one of the first companies in the world to own a smartphone with a camera under display.

VCam Kristal is a pioneering AI photography technology successfully developed by VinAI Research, allowing high-quality photography with cameras under display (CUD). By incorporating AI algorithms and models in computer vision, computational photography, and special neural network architecture, VCam Kristal overcomes optical barriers of cameras under display. The technology eliminates image blur, lack of colour, chroma noise and flare, colour fidelity, etc., to create sharp selfies with 4K resolution.

VCam Kristal is the result of cooperation between VinAI and VinSmart Research and Manufacturer Joint Stock Company. This consequently makes VinSmart one of the first companies in the world to own a smartphone using a camera under display. VCam Kristal marks an important breakthrough in AI camera technology on cell phones, opening up opportunities to commercialise high-quality cell phones with cameras under display while realising an infinity display experience.

VSound Alto is a noise filtering technology based on deep learning in speech and sound processing. Working similarly to human ears, VSound Alto can accurately capture and maintain voice quality while eliminating noise with outstanding efficiency. Compared to traditional noise filtering methods, this technology can filter out both common noise sounds and sudden noise sounds (such as sirens, the sounds while children are playing or from a keyboard), and at the same time save hardware energy consumption.

When applied to cell phones, VSound Alto technology will eliminate noise as users make phone calls. This technology improves voice quality and facilitates clearer and more seamless conversations. In the near future, Vsound Alto will be applied to eliminate noise pollution for remote conferencing systems, microphones, smart headsets, hearing aids and car noise filtering systems, etc.

Dr. Bui Hai Hung (Director of VinAI Research Institute - Vingroup) stated that: "It's our pleasure to introduce VCam Kristal and VSound Alto to tech lovers in general and AI tech lovers in particular. These technologies, along with their specific applications, are bringing AI closer to human life than ever before. VinAI will continue to make efforts in researching and developing breakthrough technologies to create products with high application value. At the same time, we will try to support enterprises to increase business productivity and efficiency with world-class technologies developed by Vietnamese intelligence."

Previously, VinAI Research introduced VFace technology for accurate face recognition when using masks. Notably, the recognition system developed by VinAI simply uses information from ordinary cameras, without needing additional sensors (such as infrared or depth sensors). This is an important factor to help save product costs, enabling easy integration into existing camera systems. 

After 18 months of research and development, VinAI proved its leading role in promoting the development of Artificial Intelligence in Viet Nam. Besides world-class research works published at the world's No. 1 conferences on Artificial Intelligence such as ICML and NeurIPS, VinAI cooperates with leading research institutes and technology universities worldwide to create a network of exchange and research to work on Artificial Intelligence solutions to solve the world's problems.

"Artificial Intelligence Day 2020 - Far-reaching to Take on the Challenge" is held online on September 12-13, 2020 with four main topics: AI Development in Vietnam: Vision and Challenges; AI in technical innovation in the fields of transportation, computer vision, and healthcare; AI Training in Vietnam and AI in natural language and Vietnamese language processing.

The event is expected to attract about 2,000 online participants in addition to being attended by world-famous speakers and panelists like Jeff Dean (Head of AI at Google); Nemanja Djuric (Machine Learning Tech Lead at Uber ATG); Professor Michael Brown - York University (Director of Samsung AI Center - Toronto), Anandan (CEO of Wadhwani Institute for Artificial Intelligence); Vu Ha (Technical Director of Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence); Professor Bhiksha Raj (Carnegie Mellon University), Professor Karin Verspoor (University of Melbourne), etc., and many famous Vietnamese AI experts working around the world. https://ai2020.vinai.io