TIRELESS SEARCH ASSISTANT: DEVONAGENT 2.0
Coeur d’Alene (Idaho, USA), 30th of March, 2006 — DEVONtechnologies, LLC
releases version 2.0 of DEVONagent, its intelligent Internet research
assistant. It is immediately available for US$ 49.95.
After three months of public beta testing, DEVONagent 2.0 is fast, rock
solid and, of course, now a universal binary. It runs natively on both
PowerPC and Intel processor based Macs. The overall performance on Intel
Macs is up to two times higher than on current PowerPC machines.
DEVONagent 2.0 jumps in where traditional Web search engines don’t go
further. Instead of delivering just a list of links, it digs into the
Internet, collects all of the pages and presents the data in a variety of
ways. DEVONagent 2.0’s user interface was designed to be easy to use yet
powerful. Unique features such as the interactive topics map (visualizer),
language filters, scanners, actions, and the scheduler make DEVONagent the
most sophisticated way to find information on the Internet.
“DEVONagent adapts to the needs of every individual user and finds exactly
the answers to the questions instead of letting the user digging through
hundreds of links manually,” says Eric Boehnisch-Volkmann, President of
DEVONtechnologies. “And with version 2.0 we’ve made DEVONagent even more
powerful. It’s the Mac way of searching the Internet!”
DEVONagent 2.0 comes with a redesigned user interface that is easier to use
and more logically integrated into the complete search workflow. Additional
items like scripts are automatically installed if needed, and a contextual
menu extension inserts a “Search with DEVONagent” item into other
applications’ contextual menus. A Dashboard widget gives the user access to
DEVONagent from any application simply by activating the Dashboard. The
documentation has been completely rewritten, and the new icon reflects
DEVONtechnologies’ new corporate design.
The most innovative addition to DEVONagent is the AI-based topics map
(visualizer). Based on topics extracted from the pool of found information,
the visualizer dynamically creates a graphical map around a selected topic
word. For each selected topic, DEVONagent 2.0 generates a new map showing
the topic in the center with related topics grouped around it. The size and
color of the “blobs” show the degree of relation and when the user moves
the mouse over them, DEVONagent highlights the most important relations as
darker lines. The topics map directly influences the digest. This summary
of the found textual information refocuses dynamically on any topic the
user selects in the map. “The interactive topics allows our users to
navigate through the pool of found information without drowning,” says Eric
Boehnisch-Volkmann, “and the digest presents the actual data from the Web
pages without the user having to visit them. With some ‘modern,’ flashy Web
sites this would be no fun anyway.”
The core search functionality of DEVONagent has been massively enhanced.
Version 2.0 comes with more than 130 hierarchically organized search
plugins that connect it to Web search engines. Plugins cannot only be used
for designing search sets, but are now also separately accessible. In
addition, the user can assign keywords to plugins and use it for a quick
search from the address bar of the built-in Web browser. This effectively
replaces the search toolbar item approach, like Safari’s Google search
field, with a much more flexible concept.
Fourteen scanner plugins post-filter found Web pages, e.g, for linked
images, Office documents, thumbnail galleries or desktop pictures. Language
filters for eleven languages and five non-latin writing systems eliminate
Web pages that do not match a selected language, and secondary queries
fine-tune search results if the number of pages returned by a search run is
too large.
The built-in Safari-based Web browser features the long-requested tabbed
browsing, optionally clears all caches and history files after quitting for
privacy, and supports Mac OS X’s spell checker and completion. JavaScripts
that try to zoom the window to full screen can be blocked, and the improved
download manager is now able to start and stop the queue at any time, and
is more compatible with certain forwarders.
Finally, DEVONagent 2.0 comes with greatly enhanced automation features and
an expanded AppleScript dictionary. Scheduler and actions have been
separated, and actions can now be attached to every search set, not only to
scheduled sets. Actions can be executed after each search run. Actions
include: bouncing the Dock icon, zooming and bringing the search window to
the front, archiving the results or adding them to DEVONthink, playing a
sound, speaking a text, sending a digest by e-mail to a given address, or
executing an AppleScript script. DEVONagent 2.0 comes with pre-made scripts
that e.g., notify the user via Growl when a search run is done, present the
found pages as RSS feed or speak the titles of the found pages. Automator
actions let even non-experienced users create simple workflows.
Eric Boehnisch-Volkmann: “All these new features, from the interactive
topics map, the more than 130 new plugins, the language filters, and the
improvements to the built-in Web browser, to the new, flexible automation
options including actions, AppleScript, Automator and the scheduler, make
DEVONagent a real information agent. It collects exactly the information
the user is looking for and provides a large number of flexible options to
process them in any possible way. That’s why we originally named it
‘agent’. It’s a must-have for everyone who needs to find information on the
Web effectively.”
DEVONagent 2.0 requires Mac OS X 10.3.9 or Mac OS X 10.4 “Tiger”. A fast
Internet connection is strongly recommended. DEVONagent 2.0 is immediately
available as a free download from www.devon-technologies.com. It must be
purchased for US$ 49.95 after the evaluation period of 60 hours of
non-continuous runtime. Registered users are entitled to upgrade for US$
19.95. DEVONagent is also available together with DEVONthink Professional
as the “Infoworker’s Pro Bundle” for US$ 99.95.
http://www.devon-technologies.com
BACKGROUND: DEVONAGENT
The knowledge of mankind doubles every one to two years, speed increasing.
How to cope with this unbelievable huge mass of data? How to find that very
document one is looking for? How to find the answer to a question?
DEVONagent is the solution for those who are tired of clicking hundreds of
links delivered by Google & Co. just to find out that most of the links are
either outdated, broken or lead to junk pages. It communicates with search
engines, digs through all the results and presents only those documents
that are really worth reading. Also, it summarizes the accumulated
knowledge and make it available as a list of the most important topics and
an interactive mind map. Finding information on the Web has never been
easier!
DEVONagent finds, collects and organizes information with a powerful search
architecture, a simple to use built-in archive and perfect integration with
DEVONthink. More than 130 plugins for popular search engines, databases and
search tools, predefined search sets, and a clean Mac-like user interface
make DEVONagent the number one tool for finding information on the web for
the Mac.
DEVONthink companion: DEVONagent can send search results as plain or rich
text, web archive or as PDF directly to a DEVONthink database with just one
click and from any view. Then, one can use DEVONthink’s intelligence to
organize it.
CORPORATE BACKGROUND
DEVONtechnologies LLC, founded in 2002, incorporated in 2004 and
headquartered in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, USA, researches in the field of
semantic and associative data analysis and synthesis, and develops key
applications based on the DEVONtechnology. Named after the Devonian Period,
the DEVONtechnology marks the departure into a new age of data processing.
The main focus of all activities is clearly on using the robust, flexible
and versatile architecture intelligently to create rock-solid applications
for a variety of purposes, including but not limited to databases,
intelligent agents, data-mining, information retrieval and
human-computer-interfaces. More information: www.devon-technologies.com.