Latest news with #VoodooXP
Zawya
22-04-2025
- Health
- Zawya
MBZUAI to showcase AI innovation at Machines Can See 2025 with expert speakers and live demos
Dubai, UAE: Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI) will participate as an official partner at Machines Can See 2025 (MCS 2025), taking place April 23–24 during Dubai AI Week. The event, hosted at the Museum of the Future and Emirates Towers, will gather more than 2,000 experts and enthusiasts focused on building a safer, more sustainable world through AI. 'As an official partner of Machines Can See, MBZUAI is proud to contribute towards building an AI ecosystem aligned with the UAE's ambitions for global leadership in science and technology,' said Ivan Laptev, Professor of Computer Vision at MBZUAI and Co-Founder of Machines Can See. 'Our research and innovations across all AI disciplines inspire students and researchers to unlock the full potential of this technology. We're excited to connect with the wider community and share what we've been working on in robotics and computer vision, showing how the university is making progress in building smart, AI-powered systems.' MBZUAI's presence at MCS 2025 includes leading voices from its research community: Hao Li, Professor of Computer Vision, will deliver both the opening and closing remarks on April 23. Sami Haddadin, Vice President of Research and Professor of Robotics, will speak on the 'Robots: Are We Ready?' panel on April 24 at 9:50 a.m. Ian Reid, Department Chair and Professor of Computer Vision, will join the 'Computer Vision: 2025' panel on April 24 at 5:30 p.m. Wafa AlGhallabi, Ph.D. student and c o-founder of Nutrigenics and will participate in the 'AI for All: Ensuring Equal Access to AI' panel on April 24 at 4:50 p.m. MBZUAI's booth will feature four interactive demonstrations developed by its research teams: Holographic Brain This advanced platform segments the brain into 32 structures and analyzes more than 100 radiomics features per region to detect subtle abnormalities. Integrating imaging, connectivity, and genetic data, the tool supports personalized risk assessment and improves diagnostic precision for neurological and psychiatric conditions. AI Arabic Doctor Developed using MBZUAI's BiMediX2 model, AI Arabic Doctor is a multimodal virtual assistant capable of answering medical queries in Arabic and English, interpreting medical images, and supporting illiterate users through speech interaction. It addresses healthcare access challenges across the Middle East and Africa and was named a winner of Meta's inaugural Llama Impact Innovation Awards. Voodoo XP Developed by the MBZUAI Metaverse Center, Voodoo XP is a one-shot, face re-enactment tool that creates 3D avatars from a single portrait image. Available via camera or VR headset, the demo enables immersive interaction and long-distance communication through realistic avatars, bringing people closer in virtual environments. LAIKA LAIKA is a robot dog that showcases robotic locomotion, perception, and reasoning. It combines the latest advances in AI and can respond to voice commands, navigate to locations of interest, and tell people what it observes. LAIKA is a prototype for an autonomous explorer or inspection robot that could help people with tedious or dangerous tasks in safety, healthcare, construction, agriculture, and more. About Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI) MBZUAI is a research-focused university in Abu Dhabi, and the first university dedicated entirely to the advancement of science through AI. The university empowers the next generation of AI leaders, driving innovation and impactful applications of AI through world-class education and interdisciplinary research. In 2025, MBZUAI launched its first ever undergraduate program, a Bachelor of Science in AI, with two distinct streams: Business and Engineering. For more information, please visit To apply for admission, visit or contact admission@ For press inquiries, please contact: Aya Sakoury MBZUAI's Head of PR and Strategic Communications Amy Rogers MBZUAI's Senior Integrated Communications Specialist media@
Khaleej Times
21-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Khaleej Times
UAE: How new technology at MBZUAI creates virtual avatar 'in seconds' through just webcam
Imagine speaking to someone across the world and seeing their facial expressions in real-time, as if they were sitting right in front of you. That's what researchers at the Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI) are promising with their latest virtual reality innovations. During a demonstration to Khaleej Times at the university's Data Observatory, Hao Li, Professor of Computer Vision and Director of MBZUAI's Metaverse Centre, and PhD student Ariana Bermudez showcased two technologies developed at the university — Voodoo XP and XMem++ — which offer new possibilities for virtual communication and digital interaction. Voodoo XP allows for realistic, real-time facial reenactment using just a single photo. 'We're doing this live,' said Professor Li, as he controlled a digital avatar that mirrored his every movement. 'What you're seeing is me controlling the avatar in real time, with no special hardware — just an ordinary camera.' The technology aims to bring people together in virtual spaces without the constraints of physical presence. Bermudez demonstrated how Voodoo XP simplifies what has traditionally been an extremely complex process. She compared it to Meta's Codec Avatar system, which requires an elaborate setup of 171 cameras and hours of training to create a 3D model. 'But with our version, you just need one webcam, and it creates an avatar in seconds,' she explained. The system captures fine movements and expressions in real time, creating avatars that can be instantly animated inside virtual environments. Bermudez described how accessible the technology is, requiring no complicated equipment or data. 'Even small movements like blinking or smiling are captured,' she added. The researchers behind Voodoo XP include Phong Tran (MBZUAI student), Egor Zakharov (ETH Zurich), Long-Nhat Ho (MBZUAI student), Anh Tuan Tran (VinAI Research), Liwen Hu (Pinscreen), and Professor Li. Bermudez also showed XMem++, an enhanced video object segmentation method. It improves memory efficiency and segmentation accuracy by introducing refined memory management strategies and lightweight attention mechanisms. Designed for long video sequences, XMem++ balances real-time performance with high-quality mask propagation, making it suitable for applications like video editing, augmented reality, and autonomous systems. 'This is something that is tedious for many VFX artists, like the ones that do special effects for movies, because usually they have to refine a lot the details,' she explained. 'The tool is very complete in the sense that you can stop the generation, and do the fixes, and propagate. So, it will adjust accordingly.' The technology has already been adopted by the visual effects community. 'When it was launched in 2023, the community immediately started using it in Nuke,' she said, referring to the industry-standard compositing software. 'So, here is Nuke and this is a tool used by the VFX artists and they incorporated this into the software and basically helps them to do this kind of effects like making someone disappear… This is how this user is using our tool,' she said while showcasing how it works on her cell phone. XMem++ is open source and freely available; 'it has all these features that they can use about tracking, refining,' she added. 'As you see that the user is going back and forth. He's selecting the person, and then it just propagates. Then he gets the masks, and he can do the effects of the tracking.' In addition to Li and Bermudez, XMem++ was developed by a team of researchers including Maksym Bekuzarov (MBZUAI Alumni) and Joon-Young Lee (Adobe).
