World's Most Valuable Brands

1. Coca-Cola - $67,000 million
Beverage company, manufacturer, distributor, and marketer of non-alcoholic beverage concentrates and syrups. The company is best known for its flagship product Coca-Cola, invented by pharmacist John Stith Pemberton in 1886.


2. Microsoft - $56,926 million
Public multinational corporation based in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions.


3. IBM - $56,201 million
Multinational computer, technology and IT consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, North Castle, New York, United States. IBM is the world's fourth largest technology company. IBM is one of the few information technology companies with a continuous history dating back to the 19th century.


4. General Electric - $48,907 million
company involved in consumer and defence electronics, communications and engineering.


5. Intel - $32,319 million
Technology company, and the world's largest semiconductor chip maker


6. Nokia - $30,131 million
Fashionable designs and low-cost models for the developing world enabled the mobile phone maker to regain ground against competitors.


7. Toyota - $27,941 million
Toyota is closing in on GM to become the world's biggest automaker. A slated 10% increase in U.S. sales this year will help even more.


8. Disney - $27,848 million
New CEO Robert Iger expanded the brand by buying animation hit-maker Pixar and beefing up digital distribution of TV shows through the Internet and iPods.


9. McDonald's - $27,501 million
A new healthy-living marketing campaign—and the premium-priced sandwiches and salads that came with it—have led to a fourth year of sales gains.


10. Mercedes-Benz - $21,795 million
The new S-Class sedan and M-Class SUV are helping repair a tarnished quality reputation. High costs and weak margins will take longer to fix.

World's Most Expensive Restaurant Dish

You take a standard dish offering -- an omelette, a bagel, a martini, a burger -- and add some combination of: black truffles, foie gras, gold leaf, caviar, a diamond, etc. Add some zeros to the price, blast out a press release for the new menu item, and your fledging establish is mentioned in papers and TV news broadcasts across the country and maybe the world, and online mentions abound. It doesn't ever need to be ordered, of course.

Here are 10 of the most ridiculously restaurant dish gimmicks of the last few years.

$1.4 Million Strawberries

The 90+ year old Arnaud restaurant in New Orleans' French Quarter sounds quaint enough. That's until you've heard about their Strawberries Arnaud, which ring in at a whopping $1.4 million. The pedestrian bowl of berries comes garnished with a 4.7-carat pink (because it's strawberries, duh) diamond ring, and is served by waiters wearing white gloves who pour $30,000 liquor.

$10,000 "Martini On The Rock"

It's just a single very special rock: a diamond. NYC's Algonquin hotel offers a $10,000 martini that comes with its own pre-selected diamond in the glass.

$5,000 Burger

Chef Hubert Keller at the Fleur de Lys restaurant at Mandalay Bay whips up the pricey burgers, which are pure Kobe beef flavored with foie gras and black truffles, served on a truffle bun, and garnished with Keller's special truffle sauce.

$1,000 Sundae Landing Serendipity on this for the second time, the Golden Opulence sundae rings in at a staggering $1,000. The sundae is a base of Thaitian vanilla ice cream infused with Madagascar vanilla beans and piece of Chuao chocolate from Venezuela that gets topped with an edible gold leaf, then drizzeled with Amedei Porcelana chocolate and candied fruit, gold covered almonds, chocolate truffles and marzipan cherries

$1,000 Omelette

Norma's in NYC's Le Parker Meridien Hotel serves their omelette with fresh Maine lobster and 10 oz. of caviar.

$1,000 Brownie

Brule, a restaurant located in Atlantic City's Tropicana Resort serves what they call the "Brownie Extraordinaire,". The dish, offered with a $15,000 Valentine's Day package is a dark chocolate brownie topped with hazelnuts, but that's not why it's so pricey. The brownie comes alongside a St. Louis crystal "atomizer," a perfume bottle-like contraption

$1,000 Bagel

Back in 2007, New York's Westin Hotel created the world's most expensive bagel, topped with white truffle cream cheese, goji berry infused Riesling jelly, and, of course, gold leaf.

$515 Sidecar Cocktail

It starts with extremely rare 1865 Ritz Reserve cognac, made from grapes that were on the vine before the devastating phylloxera infestation of the 1860s. Only a few bottles remain.

$500 Hot Pot

At his Vegas spot, Takayama charges a steep $500. The luxe hot pots come in custom-molded pots, heated on induction burners set into the tables; and feature ingredients such as wild bluefin tuna belly wrapped around julienned Japanese leeks, taraba crab legs from Hokkaido, sliced abalone, winter yellowtail and beef from the Ohmi region of Japan.

$69 Hot Dog

The beef dog is grilled in white truffle oil and then served in pretzel bread, before getting topped with foie gras, black truffles, caramelized onions, heirloom tomato ketchup, and dijon mustard with black truffles.

World's Most Stunning Bridges

From the epic expanse of the Akashi-Kaikyo Bridge suspension bridge in Japan to the timeless grandeur of San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge, the world is covered with bridges that are not only marvels of engineering but also of beauty and inspiration.

In honor of these achievements, we present 12 stunning bridges from around the globe which are both wonders of design and icons of the creative spirit. And, perhaps best of all, they're of invaluable use.

See photos of some of the world's most impressive bridges here and vote for your favorites. We tried to shy away from picking such instantly recognizable ones as, say, the Brooklyn Bridge, but let us know if we overlooked some true gems.

Downtown Seoul's Banpo Bridge features the Moonlight Rainbow Fountain, which pumps out roughly 190 tons of water through 10,000 nozzles each minute.

The pedestrian-only Helix Bridge is a particularly spectacular experience at dusk, when hundreds of lights create a one-of-a-kind experience.

the Sunniberg Bridge was the winner of 2001's Outstanding Structure Award in 2001 by the International Association for Bridge and Structural Engineering.

Built around 1650, Isfahan's multi-level Khaju Bridge also functions as a weir.

The Hangzhou Bay Bridge is the longest trans-oceanic bridge in the world, connecting Shanghai and Ningbo.

Norwegian architect Vebjørn Sand based his designs for the "Golden Horn" on a bridge sketched by Leonardo Da Vinci in 1502, but never built.

The Gateshead Millennium has pivots at the ends which raise the walkway and lowering the main arch to allow river traffic through.

San Diego's Coronado Bridge was named the country's "most beautiful bridge" in 1970 by the American Institute of Steel Construction.

Prince Edward Island's 8-mile-long Confederation Bridge spans the Abegweit Passage of Northumberland Strait, and was nicknamed the "Fixed Link" by locals before its completion.

Istanbul's Bosphorus Bridge connects Europe with Asia.

The soaring Alamillo Bridge in Seville was built for the city's Expo '92, a World's Fair-type exposition organized to celebrate the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus' historic voyage.