There might not be anyone at MIT's Media Lab who can slam dunk a basketball like Michael Jordan, but that's okay: they've got the brain power to measure the backboard-shaking force of every dunk. The Media Lab devised a way to measure the force behind a slam dunk using conductive thread woven into standard basketball netting. When a ball makes contact with the net, the conductive thread creates an electric current and feeds force data to a computer chip mounted on the backboard.
The computer chip sends its information out to TV production equipment, where the measurement of force in joules--translated as Slam Force Gs, which sounds cooler--can be broadcast to your TV screen.
MIT developed the technology specifically for the Slam Dunk contest held last weekend. Sure, it's a gimmick, but it's cool to be able to compare the visual impact with cold hard data--Slam Force Gs could definitely catch on.