To all our friends,

We hope your 2011 was as exciting and fulfilling as ours. As we look toward 2012, we reflect on how lucky we are to have such awesome tools, visionary customers, and world-changing partners to work with every day. Warm holiday wishes to each and every one of you.

From all of us at JKI
(including Tomi, who was busy delighting a customer on picture day!)

“We have high confidence in the quality JKI produces. The code they deliver works – they’ve clearly tested it thoroughly. And when JKI makes a promise about a timeline, we know we can trust it.” - Gary Palmer, Staff Electrical Engineer, Proteus Biomedical, Inc.

How cool would it be if your medication system could report your body’s vital signs as well as your dosage history? Gary Palmer and his team at Proteus Biomedical are developing just such a system called Raisin™.

Raisin combines an intelligent pharmaceutical (a pill with a sensor) with a wearable monitor. Tiny, digestible sensors made from food ingredients and bonded to a patient’s pills, then activated by stomach fluids after the patient swallows the pill. The patient also wears a small bandage-style patch on his or her skin to detect the ultra-low-power, private, digital signal emitted by the sensor.

This system can provide extremely useful data for healthcare providers and patients:

• The Raisin patch personal monitor records information such as type of drug, dose, and place of manufacture; captures date and time; and also measures and reports physiologic parameters such as heart rate and activity.
• Healthcare professionals can also derive metrics like sleep patterns and respiration rate from the collected data.
• The patch communicates with the patient’s phone using Bluetooth, and the phone makes the data available to patients via user-friendly customized displays on mobile phones, tablets and desktop computers. Patients can choose who else can see their data, including family members or doctors.

Read the case study to see how Proteus and JKI created a collection of LabVIEW-based component and system testing tools to manage system verification and production testing for the Proteus Intelligent Medicine system. The result? With this amazing system, patients can better understand and manage their health. And doctors can provide better care because they have better information.

Note: The Raisin™ system is an Investigational Device limited by Federal (or United States) law to investigational use.  The Raisin™ system is not for sale and is available for use only under Investigational Review Board (IRB) approved clinical studies. 

Smart pill with tiny digestible sensor

Proteus "smart pills," wearable electronic recorder patch, and phone-based monitor

It was an outstanding and busy week, and in the hubbub, we didn’t have time to post our first-day-of-NIWeek Live Wires newsletter here on the blog, so here it is now.

Take a look at Live Wires to check out the latest LabVIEW Community and JKI happenings! This newsletter is an “NIWeek special,” so if you didn’t make it to the conference, you can catch up on some of the exciting news and events. And if you did attend, you might have missed some of these tidbits.

Better yet, sign up to receive the newsletter directly (don’t worry, we won’t spam you incessantly – it only goes out every few months).  After you read it, we’d love to hear your thoughts on how to make it even better! What other articles would you like to see? What are you sick of seeing? Leave a comment and tell us…

In addition to showing off some cool new stuff in our booth, you’ll also find us presenting various technical sessions. Come soak up the LabVIEW secrets our experts are sharing…

The Business Side of Social: Put the LabVIEW Community to Work for You
Tuesday, August 2^nd – 1-2 PM, Room 10C

Jack Dunaway, LabVIEW Champion, Certified LabVIEW Architect, and top contributor to the LabVIEW Idea Exchange, shares his secrets about how to get a great return on time invested in the LabVIEW Community. He’ll also show you how to equip yourself with online tools that give you the inside scoop on the latest engineering techniques to keep you at the top of your game.

Beyond State Machines: Building Modular Applications in LabVIEW
Tuesday, August 2^nd – 2:15-3:15 PM, Room 14

Nearly every significant LabVIEW application uses multiple loops and several pieces of hardware… and coordinating these moving pieces can create a recipe for unreadable code. Justin Goeres, Certified LabVIEW Architect and JKI Product Marketing Manager, will teach you how to use a template for inter-process communication based on “public” and “private” events that is easy enough for intermediate developers but powerful enough for Certified LabVIEW Architects.

5 Clever Debugging Techniques for Every LabVIEW Developer
Wednesday, August 3^rd – 4:45-5:45 PM, Room 10C

Do you want to be a LabVIEW bug assassin? Do you want to identify, isolate, and fix bugs faster than your coworkers by using clever tricks? Omar Mussa, Certified LabVIEW Architect and Senior JKI Project Engineer, will show you several powerful built-in LabVIEW debugging techniques, ranging from simple tools like Retain Wire Values to the best LabVIEW debugging feature that no one knows about.

Manage Reusable Code and Build Commercial Software with the VI Package Manager
Tuesday, August 2^nd – 10:30-11:30 AM, Room 18C or Thursday, August 3rd – 10:30-11:30 AM, Room 18C — pick your favorite time (both sessions are the same.)

Do you need to package your LabVIEW code in reusable components that are easy to track and share with other users, easily install VIs on multiple computers and versions of LabVIEW, or license your LabVIEW packages to quickly turn your code into a commercial product? NI’s Robert Des Rosier, assisted by VIPM Product Manager and JKI Senior Engineer Michael Aivaliotis, will teach you how to set up the most efficient processes for your team to build and distribute VIs and utilities for free.

Bonus for Special People: Chris Roebuck on Data Driven Test
Monday, August 1^st at 6:00 PM – by invitation only

Finally, if you’re fortunate enough to have received an invitation to NI’s Test Leadership Forum event, please join one of our favourite customers, Chris Roebuck from Astrium Ltd., to learn about Data Driven Test in the space industry!

Overview

Many organizations have invested heavily in test data management systems. Understanding how your test data can be used to improve the business results involves considering both the nature of your company’s business and how the data should be stored and accessed. This session will cover key performance indicators and tools that can help test engineers improve business results across various stages of the product life cycle.

“That’s all great stuff!” you say. “But what about those legendary NIWeek parties for after-hours fun?” No worries, we’ve got you covered there too. Stay tuned for our upcoming blog later this week, JKI’s Unofficial Guide to NIWeek Fun…

In this episode, we gear up for NIWeek 2011 by discussing why we love NIWeek, what keeps people coming back, and our picks for the best technical sessions and social events of the week. VI Shots continues to do great work, and this episode was a ton of fun to be a part of. Speaking for myself, I can’t believe NIWeek is only ten days away — I can’t wait!

Check out the whole circus here. (Did you know you can also subscribe to VI Shots in iTunes?)

I haven’t listened to the whole episode yet, but I’m told there’s some “bonus material” tacked on to the end. I hope it’s nothing I can’t live down. Or should I say up to?

Foundation's Rapid Load Tester

Foundation Constructors Inc. specializes in pile-driving. In other words, we hammer long cylinders made of steel and concrete into the ground to create stable foundations for buildings, bridges, and other structures.

After a building pile has been installed, our mobile, track-mounted Rapid Load Tester (RLT) drops a 25-metric-ton mass (55,000 lbs!) onto a load cell that sits on top of the pile, where large damping springs extend the load over time. The RLT, rebuilt by JKI, measures the vertical displacement of the piles as a function of the vertical force applied to them, to determine if they can safely support the structure that will be built on top of them.

Read the full case study to learn how JKI used LabVIEW and DAQ to create a one-of-a-kind, state-of-the-art Rapid Load Tester that gives Foundation a strong competitive advantage as they pound things into the ground…

Rapid Load Tester Front Panel

Building Strong Foundations with JKI

JKI is pleased to announce the release of VIPM 2010 Community Edition for Mac OS X.  JKI strongly recommends all OS X users upgrade to take advantage of literally hundreds of new features and speed improvements we’ve added to VIPM since VIPM 2.0, the last OS X-compatible version.

VIPM 2010 for Mac OS X allows users to download and install LabVIEW add-ons from the LabVIEW Tools Network, install VI Packages, and apply VI Package Configuration files created by VIPM for Windows.  It also adds support for LabVIEW 2010 and beyond. We’re extremely excited that VIPM can now support cross-platform installation of the latest LabVIEW add-ons.  (Note: you can’t actually build packages with it yet due to some outstanding bugs; we’re working on it.)

How to Get VIPM 2010 for Mac OS X

If you’re already a VIPM user, VIPM will notify you that there’s a new version available the next time you launch it, or you can select Help >> Check for VI Package Manager Update from the menu bar. You can also download VIPM directly.

If you’re not already using VIPM, what are you waiting for? Download VIPM Community for free and install all the great LabVIEW add-ons available from the LabVIEW Tools Network, JKI, OpenG.org, and more!

FRC Team Support System Console

National Instruments engineers Mark Black, Aaron Pena, Patrick Corcoran, and Kyle Smoot are part of NI’s on-the-ground “control system advisors” team for FRC.  They help teams solve technical problems and fix bugs (bugs?! what bugs??) in the robots during the competition.  For the 2011 event they’ve used LabVIEW and JKI’s EasyXML Toolkit to create an FRC Team Support application that allows teams in Saint Louis to use mobile devices to request technical support, and allows the control system advisors to remotely check and handle support tickets.  This means less time spent roaming around looking for people to help, and more time spent helping teams compete!

Read the case study here.



FRC Team Support Mobile Interface



But what’s a trip to NI without a good party?! Springtime in Austin is a lovely time for a BBQ, so JKI threw one on NI’s lawn…

The good times brought back fabulous memories of NIWeeks past. We’re really looking forward to re-connecting with so many of our LabVIEW friends in just 4.5 short months at NIWeek! Sign up if you haven’t – you can get Early Bird pricing till May 31st. JKI might even have a presentation or two.

A VIsit From St. NIcholas

‘Twas the night before Christmas, and throughout JKI,
Not a creature was stirring, naught but idle VIs;
The LabVIEW front panels were laid out with care,
In hopes that St. NIcholas soon would be there.

The architects nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of packages danc’d in their heads,
When near the build server there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.
The soft, warming glow of its power-on light,
Gave welcome assurance that things were alright.

When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer,
With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be St. NIck.

More rapid than gigabit backplanes they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and call’d them by name:
“Now! Darren! Christina! AQ, and JP,
“On, Norman! On Brian, JeffK and Nancy!
“To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
“Now optimize buffers! Fix DAQmx calls!”

So up to the house-top the engineers flew,
With the sleigh full of add-ons – and St. NIcholas too.
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St. NIcholas came with a bound:
He was dress’d all in Wires, from his head to his foot,
His gloves, Notifiers! His boots, made of Queues!?

A Cluster of Classes was flung on his back,
And he look’d like a peddler Unbundling his pack:
He unfurled a long list of new secret features,
That promised to make engineers’ lives much easier.
He’d culled them all from his Idea Exchange,
Selected by voting, no matter how strange.
And new LabVIEW add-ons available quick,
From the LabVIEW Tools Network, in just a few clicks!

He launched VIPM and refreshed the list
Of available packages. And with a flick of his wrist,
He set to installing, without hesitation,
While I stood in amazement and anticipation.

He spoke not a word, for he knew what to do,
He fill’d up vi.lib; installed palettes, too!
Then laying his finger aside of his nose
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose.

He sprung to his sleigh, and clicked the Run Arrow.
The sleigh took to flight, and away like a sparrow:
But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight -
Happy Wiring to all, and to all a good night.

As the end of another great year arrives, JKI would like to take a moment to thank all of our friends in the LabVIEW ecosystem.  Without all of you, the LabVIEW community would be a less innovative, vibrant, and enjoyable place to work and play.

Happy Holidays from all of us at JKI!