In our second video interview installment about how we test LabVIEW and our driver software, Byron Radle takes us through our internal Reliability Lab. When you watch it, the background noise is coming from 20 fully-loaded PXI chassis and 40 fully-loaded CompactRIO systems all running at once in our lab – raw (loud) power! You can tell from the freeze frame below that Byron is excited about this lab.
Once again, if you can think of specific scenarios that we need to add to our testing matrix, please respond.
This year, we decided to beef up the LabVIEW beta program with more users and more involvement. For those of you who were not aware, we are now in beta 2 for LabVIEW Orion – you can register for the program here. (Even though we operate using cool project code names like “Saturn” and “Orion”, every year R&D lets the cat out of the bag when the beta goes out. Apparently the feature that has the longest lead time and must be nailed down first is changing the version from the code name to a number. When you sign up for the beta this year, you want to look for “LabVIEW 2009″).
We are also getting more hands on with our beta users. Rather than just have you download the beta version and figure things out on your own, we have recorded some videos showing the new features so you can get a quick overview of what we’ve added. We also have a beta forum where you can ask questions or comment on the new features – each feature area has a dedicated forum thread where they are discussed directly with the developers of that feature.
Even if you are not interested in banging on the new features in the beta, we recommend you download the new version and load up your current application to see if it runs. We’ve been focusing more on making the upgrade process more smooth over the past few years, hopefully you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
With our elevated focus on the beta this year, we’ve increased the number of beta users this year by more than 40%.
For years, we have periodically been excited and surprised about our products showing up on TV shows. However, recently it seems to be a happening more often. For your viewing pleasure, go check out LabVIEW on the small screen:
CBS 60 Minutes ran a story last night entitled “Cold Fusion is Hot Again” in which researcher Michael McKubre makes the case for a bright future involving cold fusion. You will notice a bunch of LabVIEW measurement and control applications shown during the interview.
Spike TV has a new show called the Deadliest Warrior in which the pit two famous warriors against each other and try to measure which one is the deadliest. They are using DIAdem extensively to analyze the measurement results to determine the deadliest. It’s a cool show with lots of gory details attempting to simulate real-life impact of these deadly weapons (in one episode, they attempt to slice through 4 huge pigs with one fell swoop of a samarai sword – the pigs simulating humans. I’ll let you watch the episode to see how far they get).l
And finally, one of my kids’ favorites is Discovery Channel’s MythBusters. In an upcoming episode, the MythBusters team uses LabVIEW to control and measure one of the experiments – I’ll have to update this link once the episode goes live.
We have made tremendous strides in the LabVIEW development-testing-releasing cycle over the past 10 years. As we’ve developed more and more products (both hardware and software) that must work with LabVIEW, and we’ve moved to annual releases, we’ve had to continue to turn the screws on these processes.
Byron Radle is one of the key drivers behind our testing process in R&D. He and his team have spearheaded the development of Cross-Product Integration Lab and a Reliability Lab to pound on our products before, and after, they release. I recently interviewed him to give you some insight into these efforts.
Feel free to comment with specific scenarios that you would like us to include in our test matrix, or examples where you found incompatbilities in a release.
Look for Part 2 of my interview with Byron where we take a peak into our product Reliability Lab.
Hopefully, you’ve seen this by now… some of our inside information was leaked today.
We’ve also renewed our focus on 3rd-party partners this year, as I mentioned in my New Year’s Resolutions. I’m glad to see some of them getting into the act as well – here is a new tool from JKI Software that you might be interested in.
Posted by pasquarette 
Posted by pasquarette 
Posted by pasquarette 
