Probably the most widely used and most highly respected research and development tool - National Instruments' LabVIEW virtual instrumentation and graphical development software - is now in its seventh edition. Launched last month, LabVIEW 7 Express is the result of four years of engineering effort, and now extends this powerful tool into the realm of the handheld device, from embedded FPGAs to Palm OS and Microsoft Pocket PC PDAs. Beta testers have been generous in their praise for the new product. Albert Geven, engineering manager, Test & Measurement Automation at Royal Philips Electronics says that in the ten years he has been using the product he had never seen such a large leap in productivity in a single version upgrade. NI president, James Truchard describes his company's latest achievement as being one that closes the gap between 'easy' and 'powerful'. Among the many new features of the software, Express VIs are ready-made virtual instruments covering the most common measurement and automation tasks. There are 40 of them in LabVIEW 7, which speed the development of applications ranging from data acquisition to signal analysis and file I/O. These easy-to-configure dialogues require little or no programming. The new release is a family of products, including LabVIEW Base, Full and Professional Development systems, as well as a new range of add-on modules for handheld devices and industrial control and automation applications.