Net-Zero Energy Residential Test Facility (NZERTF) Homepage. The Net-Zero Energy Residential Test Facility (NZERTF) is a unique laboratory at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), in Gaithersburg, Md. This facility, operated by the Energy and Environment Division in NIST's Engineering Laboratory, will allow researchers to test various high-efficiency and alternative energy systems, materials, and designs. During the first year of operation, NIST researchers will simulate a family of four living in an energy efficient home and monitor how the house performs. The goal is to demonstrate that a net-zero energy house—one that produces as much energy as it consumes over the course of a year—can fit into any neighborhood. Following the year-long experiment, the facility will be used to test existing and new energy efficient technologies and develop methods of test that better reflect how those technologies will perform in a real home, rather than a laboratory.
Research. Researchers can keylog your PC using your iPhone's accelerometer. Researchers at Georgia Tech and MIT have developed a proof of concept to demonstrate that it is possible to record a computer user's keystrokes using an iPhone 4's accelerometer. The researchers developed a method to accurately translate the vibrations from typing on a keyboard picked up by the device's accelerometer when placed on a desk near a PC. Though they warn that hackers could potentially use their method to eavesdrop on a user's keystrokes, they believe the actual threat is quite low. The method, detailed in a paper titled “(sp)iPhone: Decoding Vibrations From Nearby Keyboards Using Mobile Phone Accelerometers,” works by interpreting pairs of keystrokes in successive order. According to principal researcher Patrick Traynor, assistant professor at Georgia Tech’s School of Computer Science, the method can't reliably pinpoint single keystrokes.
According to Traynor, the method is 80 percent accurate with a 58,000 word dictionary. DARPA Shredder Challenge. Welcome to User Speed Game.