Today kicked off NIWeek 2011, National Instruments' (NI) annual conference in Austin, TX. According to organizers, this year set a record for attendance, with more than 3,300 people braving the 100°+ Texas heat to head out to the Austin Convention Center to hear about the newest developments in graphical systems design.

They were rewarded with a host of new product introductions, announced at this morning's keynote. Perhaps the most notable is the launch of LabVIEW 2011, the newest version of NI's centerpiece system design software. This time around, the company took pains to improve the software's stability, putting in 40% more manual test hours. Apparently, their efforts paid off, as new bugs discovered were down almost 30% over previous versions, according to the company. Other benefits include a new, more modern user interface; five times faster loading, wiring, editing and compiling of FPGA code; and improved multithreading.

This marks the 25th anniversary of LabVIEW, so it was only fitting that today's keynote began with a look back from NI president, CEO, and cofounder James Truchard. Another highlight of the morning was the live demo of "Angry Eagles," NI's version of "Angry Birds" rewritten with LabVIEW. It even featured a giant slingshot. 

—Jamie Hartford