The state of Illinois has launched an open technology challenge. “The Illinois Open Technology Challenge is a pilot initiative that will make Illinois’ open data platform, Data.Illinois.Gov, available to municipal governments statewide. The Challenge, which will launch in the pilot communities of Belleville, Champaign, Rockford, and Chicago’s South Suburbs, will promote the availability of public data and encourage the use of technology to address government challenges through innovation and entrepreneurship.”

The USGS has announced that the National Geologic Map Database (NGMDB) has gotten a facelift. “For example, the MapView features a visually compelling new interface that uses the latest technology to portray the Nation’s geologic maps published by the USGS, the state geological surveys, and many others. These maps, available from the NGMDB in several popular and easy to use formats, can be viewed in detail and downloaded from the various publishers.”

Now available: a new search engine to find items in stock at local bike shops.

The Harvard Gazette has an update on online course initiative HarvardX.

This January, Fordham University will launch a new project — a database of burial grounds for African-American slaves.

Facebook will be shutting down the “Questions” product, at least for individual accounts.

The University of Washington has a new online folk collection. “On the site are 141 music tracks, more than seven hours of vintage folk music, recorded in living rooms and kitchens, at hootenannies and jam sessions, coffee houses and college shows. Artists include the late Walt Robertson, who in 1953 founded the Pacific Northwest Folklore Society along with Don Firth and others.”

Oh noes! eBay is removing wildcard searching from its advanced search functionality.

! Looks like Ancestry got bought.

Mary Ellen Bates takes a look at Google search quirks.

Congratulations to Chronicling America for digitizing five million newspaper pages! Good morning, Internet..