Neural networks and scrapers

Nick1 · Dec 19, 2011

Does anyone have experience with using neural networks to code scrapers and such?

Are they worth the trouble learning for such a use? It seems like it is an interesting subject, I just want to know if it has a real practical advantage in time saved in the long run.

Chris22 · Dec 19, 2011

I fucked around using a neural network to help solve captchas on certain sites and read text from images, and had varying degrees of success.

If you're using a ready made open source one to do something, ie OCR, then it's not too much of a hassle to implement.

The real ballache comes from when you need to customize it to do something more custom and out of the ordinary.

Nick1 · Dec 23, 2011

Yeah, I know OCR is a pretty common use for neural networks.

Jeff Heaton has an interesting blurb on it in his introductionary neural network book.

"The neural network-based bot detailed below is provided with the name of a famous person. It uses this information to perform a Yahoo search and obtain information on
the person. The bot ?reads? all of the information found on the person and attempts to determine the individual?s correct birth year."

I just got the book, so I was wondering about the possibilities. If I could automate simple tasks, like scraping a list of suppliers and e-mailing them a request for price quote, it would be very cool.

Chris22 · Dec 30, 2011

Nick1 said:
Yeah, I know OCR is a pretty common use for neural networks.

Jeff Heaton has an interesting blurb on it in his introductionary neural network book.

"The neural network-based bot detailed below is provided with the name of a famous person. It uses this information to perform a Yahoo search and obtain information on
the person. The bot ?reads? all of the information found on the person and attempts to determine the individual?s correct birth year."

I just got the book, so I was wondering about the possibilities. If I could automate simple tasks, like scraping a list of suppliers and e-mailing them a request for price quote, it would be very cool.

That sounds amazing, I don't think I have the understanding of those types of neural networks yet to be able to make em do something useful like that though

Neural networks and scrapers

Nick1

Junior Member

Chris22

Regular Member

Nick1

Junior Member

Chris22

Regular Member

Main Menu

Marketplace

Making Money

BlackHat World