DEVONtechnologies has released a beta version of DEVONagent and an update for DEVONthink, bringing it to version 1.7.1. DEVONagent is a utility designed to be an automatic user defined search assistant. DEVONthink is a personal data management tool designed for organizing data, ranging from pictures to source codes. The latest releases adds several new features and enhancements to both applications. According to DEVONtechnologies:

DEVONtechnologies releases the first public beta of the intelligent Internet search agent DEVONagent and updates DEVONthink to version 1.7.1.

Based on DEVONtechnologiesi revolutionary DEVONtechnology, DEVONagent is the information finding tool of the next generation. It simulates the behaviour of a human web surfer scanning the Internet for a specific piece of information.

DEVONagent 1.0b1 comes with a total of 15 plug-ins for querying a great variety of search engines and databases, scanning the Usenet, and much more. Also, crawler sets allow users to define their own lists of pages and scan them automatically with just one click. The NEAR operator, which is unique to DEVONagent and some super-high-end databases, dramatically improves the quality of the search results, and the integration with DEVONthink makes it easy to archive and organise the found information.

DEVONthink 1.7.1 adds tight integration with DEVONagent, features an automatic update check function and is overall faster. An improved database optimisation letis the application start up much faster, and some minor interface glitches and bugs have been removed.

You can find more information about the DEVONagent beta release and DEVONthink update at the DEVONtechnologies Web site. DEVONagent is available as freeware. The DEVONthink update is free for registered users, while the full version is available for US$35.00.