Business & Economy
Chiba City selects five startups for C-CAP’s seventh cohort
Chiba City selected five companies from 19 applicants for the seventh cohort of its C-CAP acceleration program. The five-month support package includes individual mentoring, business matching and problem-solving sessions, with separate tracks for business growth and companies preparing for an IPO. The cohort spans data analysis, cord-blood technology, luggage logistics for inbound travelers, quantum sensing and dementia-prevention research.
Source: Chiba City
Narita airport advances automated freight-road testing
Chiba Prefecture, Narita International Airport, Obayashi, Cuebus and NTT DATA will conduct 2026 fiscal-year trials of an automated freight-road system inside Narita Airport. The next phase will test multiple autonomous carriers and cargo-handling operations, moving beyond earlier demonstrations of basic driving performance. The project is tied to Narita’s planned expansion and Japan’s effort to address logistics labor shortages.
Source: Chiba Prefecture
Aqua-Line panel reviews whether time-based tolls are easing congestion
Chiba Prefecture convened the sixth Tokyo Bay Aqua-Line traffic-flow panel on October 2 to review traffic conditions, economic activity and the future of the ETC time-based toll experiment. The current system was extended through fiscal 2026. The key policy question is whether shifting drivers away from peak weekend periods can reduce congestion without undermining the regional economic benefits of the crossing.
Source: Chiba Prefecture
Science & Technology
Chiba team builds high-fidelity simulator for event cameras
A Chiba University-led team developed a physics-based method for simulating event cameras, sensors that record pixel-level brightness changes instead of conventional video frames. The path-tracing approach is designed to generate more accurate synthetic event streams and could help researchers train AI for robotics and autonomous driving without collecting every dataset on scarce physical hardware. The paper appeared online September 17 in IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics.
Source: Chiba University
TFActProfiler maps 2.6 million transcription-factor relationships
Chiba University and RIKEN researchers created TFActProfiler, a freely available database containing about 2.6 million quantified relationships between transcription factors and target genes. They also developed a mathematical method for predicting how suppressing or activating a transcription factor could change a cell’s overall state. The work, published September 15 in Nucleic Acids Research, is a research tool rather than evidence of a new treatment.
Source: Chiba University
Communities
Ichikawa measles case prompts exposure warning
Chiba Prefecture reported that a woman in her 40s living in Ichikawa was diagnosed with measles on September 27. Epidemiological investigation found that she had used public facilities or transport during a period when she could have infected others. The prefecture stressed that measles is highly contagious and urged residents to confirm vaccination and seek medical advice before visiting a clinic if symptoms appear.
Source: Chiba Prefecture
Chiba reports fatal Japanese encephalitis case in Inba area
An Inba Health Center-area man in his 80s was diagnosed with Japanese encephalitis after developing fever, neck stiffness, impaired consciousness and involuntary movement; he died in late September. Chiba Prefecture said the infection location could not be determined. The case was the prefecture’s second reported Japanese encephalitis case of 2026 as of September 30.
Source: Chiba Prefecture
Sports
Altiri Chiba’s B.PREMIER home-opening weekend continues October 4
Altiri Chiba is scheduled to host the Kawasaki Brave Thunders at 14:05 on October 4 at Chiba Port Arena, the second game of its first B.PREMIER home-opening weekend. The club entered the new top-tier competition after its rise through the B.League system. The October 4 program also includes a ceremony retiring former captain Yuto Otsuka’s No. 24 jersey.
Source: Altiri Chiba
Altiri guard Kotetsu Kurokawa returns with Asian Games silver
Altiri Chiba guard Kotetsu Kurokawa finished the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games with a silver medal for Japan. JOC lists him as an Altiri player, and he was a major contributor during the tournament, including a 23-point performance in the quarterfinal win over Chinese Taipei. The result gives Chiba’s B.PREMIER club a current senior international medalist as its home season begins.
Source: JOC
Culture
Chiba’s 75th prefectural art exhibition shows about 1,700 works
The 75th Chiba Prefectural Art Exhibition runs at the Chiba Prefectural Museum of Art through October 18, with roughly 1,700 works across Japanese painting, Western-style painting, sculpture, crafts and calligraphy. The first section, featuring Japanese painting, sculpture and calligraphy, ends October 4 at 15:00; Western-style painting and crafts begin October 8. Admission is free.
Source: Chiba Prefecture
Chiba Mirai Culture Festival opens with student performances
Chiba Mirai Culture Festival 2026 begins October 4 and is scheduled to run through November 22, bringing concerts, performances and exhibitions by junior-high and high-school students into commercial facilities around the prefecture. Opening-day events near Keisei-Chiba Station feature Sodegaura High School’s calligraphy club at 11:00 and Makuhari Sohgoh High School’s symphonic orchestra club at 13:30. Viewing is free.
Source: Chiba Prefecture
String quartet brings music back into an 1899 school hall
Chiba Symphony Orchestra musicians will perform a string-quartet concert October 4 inside the former Gakushuin Elementary School auditorium at Boso-no-Mura in Sakae. The nationally designated Important Cultural Property was built in Tokyo in 1899, moved to the Narita area in 1937, and relocated to its current site in 1975. The 14:00 concert marks Boso-no-Mura’s 40th anniversary and the Fudoki-no-Oka museum’s 50th.
Source: Chiba Prefecture
