From recent CMB and Large Scale Structure observations the value of the equation of state of dark energy , assuming it to be constant in time , is constrained to be -1.3 < w < -0.7 at the 95 \% confidence level : consistent with dark energy being a classical vacuum term .
Here we describe two novel and independent methods , sensitive to different systematics , that give the same value for w and similar confidence regions .
This suggests that systematics are not an issue in current determinations of w .
The first method yields a measurement of w that relies on the minimum number of model-dependent parameters ; the second method is a non-parametric measurement of the time dependence of w ( z ) .
We also present a method to statistically determine the edge of a distribution .