Powering Play in Kansas City

This installment of our Connected by GFiber series features Little Explorers, a children’s play cafe in Kansas City, MO. GFiber’s reliable internet helps provide a connected gathering space for families to explore and unwind.

In the heart of Kansas City, Missouri, Little Explorers is more than just a children’s play cafe; it’s a community hub. For us, reliable internet isn't a luxury—it's the backbone of our mission to create a truly accessible gathering space for families.


The idea for Little Explorers was born out of personal need. Whenever I wanted to take my daughter to do anything fun, we’d have to drive 30 minutes out. I wanted to create something for our kids to do that is on the bus line, is accessible for people that don’t have cars, and is minutes from everything in Kansas City.


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Little Explorers is designed to cater to the diverse needs of modern families. Kids explore a stocked playroom and a safe, engaging environment, while parents grab a coffee or a snack and take advantage of the workspace — and great Wi-Fi. Many parents work remotely at the cafe while their children play nearby.


One of the most special parts of our space is Open Play, a time where little ones can freely explore, imagine, and create. Our dramatic play areas let children step into different roles, build stories, and connect with others through play, while our sensory zones give them the chance to discover and grow at their own pace.


In addition to daily play, Little Explorers also hosts parties and special events, like the upcoming Arts and Crafts hour on November 20th. 



All of this activity requires reliable, high-speed internet, like Little Explorers’ GFiber. 


Before signing up for GFiber, we were unable to run daily operations smoothly. We couldn’t even get a reliable phone signal, missing crucial voicemails and emails and struggling to operate point-of-sale systems. This unreliable connection hindered what Little Explorers could offer its guests. 


Connecting to GFiber was a game-changer, transforming our offerings and providing the stability and speed necessary to power all their services. 


GFiber’s reliable connection not only allows Little Explorers to run daily operations smoothly, but also enhances the overall experience for families. 



The vision doesn’t stop here. In the future, Little Explorers hopes to expand and offer more resources for children and families in the community. STEM programs, free groceries, and a mobile clinic are on the list of possibilities for the playroom, and we even hope to kickstart a community garden. With a reliable foundation in place, Little Explorers is well-positioned to continue growing and serving its community in impactful ways.


Posted by Shavonne Mann, Owner, Little Explorers Playroom.

Powering Play in Kansas City

This installment of our Connected by GFiber series features Little Explorers, a children’s play cafe in Kansas City, MO. GFiber’s reliable internet helps provide a connected gathering space for families to explore and unwind.

In the heart of Kansas City, Missouri, Little Explorers is more than just a children’s play cafe; it’s a community hub. For us, reliable internet isn't a luxury—it's the backbone of our mission to create a truly accessible gathering space for families.


The idea for Little Explorers was born out of personal need. Whenever I wanted to take my daughter to do anything fun, we’d have to drive 30 minutes out. I wanted to create something for our kids to do that is on the bus line, is accessible for people that don’t have cars, and is minutes from everything in Kansas City.


Thumbnail


Little Explorers is designed to cater to the diverse needs of modern families. Kids explore a stocked playroom and a safe, engaging environment, while parents grab a coffee or a snack and take advantage of the workspace — and great Wi-Fi. Many parents work remotely at the cafe while their children play nearby.


One of the most special parts of our space is Open Play, a time where little ones can freely explore, imagine, and create. Our dramatic play areas let children step into different roles, build stories, and connect with others through play, while our sensory zones give them the chance to discover and grow at their own pace.


In addition to daily play, Little Explorers also hosts parties and special events, like the upcoming Arts and Crafts hour on November 20th. 



All of this activity requires reliable, high-speed internet, like Little Explorers’ GFiber. 


Before signing up for GFiber, we were unable to run daily operations smoothly. We couldn’t even get a reliable phone signal, missing crucial voicemails and emails and struggling to operate point-of-sale systems. This unreliable connection hindered what Little Explorers could offer its guests. 


Connecting to GFiber was a game-changer, transforming our offerings and providing the stability and speed necessary to power all their services. 


GFiber’s reliable connection not only allows Little Explorers to run daily operations smoothly, but also enhances the overall experience for families. 



The vision doesn’t stop here. In the future, Little Explorers hopes to expand and offer more resources for children and families in the community. STEM programs, free groceries, and a mobile clinic are on the list of possibilities for the playroom, and we even hope to kickstart a community garden. With a reliable foundation in place, Little Explorers is well-positioned to continue growing and serving its community in impactful ways.


Posted by Shavonne Mann, Owner, Little Explorers Playroom.

Beta Channel Update for ChromeOS / ChromeOS Flex

The Beta channel is being updated to OS version 16433.34.0 (Browser version 142.0.7444.97) for most ChromeOS devices.

If you find new issues, please let us know one of the following ways:



  1. File a bug

  2. Visit our ChromeOS communities

    1. General: Chromebook Help Community

    2. Beta Specific: ChromeOS Beta Help Community

  3. Report an issue or send feedback on Chrome

  4. Interested in switching channels? Find out how.


Andy Wu

Google ChromeOS

Gemini Deep Research now integrates with your Workspace content

What’s changing

We’re expanding the capabilities of Gemini’s Deep Research feature by integrating it with your Google Workspace apps. This update allows Deep Research to seamlessly gather information from your content in Gmail, Chat, and Drive - including Slides, Sheets and Docs files - in addition to the web, to create a more comprehensive and personalized report.

Previously, users had to manually upload individual files from Drive to supplement their Deep Research. Now, Deep Research can pull securely from your Workspace content, including emails and even chats, informing reports with relevant context.


This update helps end users, including students, educators and those in small businesses, to do their best work by making research more efficient and context-aware. Your users can now integrate information directly from:

  • Google Docs, Slides, Sheets, and PDFs in Drive, including non-Google files
  • Context from emails in Gmail
  • Information from Chat messages
Example use cases for end users:

  • Business planning: Users can ask Deep Research to kickstart analysis for a new product using team documents, build out a competitor report referencing internal strategy memos and communications, or help onboard onto a new project quickly after analyzing documents, emails, and chat history.
  • Project catch-up: Get quickly caught up on an in-progress project by asking, "Catch me up on my <some project you have docs, chats, emails about. e.g., my remodeling project>. What are some decisions I need to make, and for each, can you research potential options".
  • Academic research: Students and faculty can ask Deep Research to review their existing notes and research papers on a topic and combine that with web research to pull together an insightful report that includes insights from their own documents.

Getting started

Rollout pace

Availability

Available for Google Workspace:

  • Business Starter, Standard, Plus
  • Enterprise Starter, Standard, Plus
  • Education Fundamentals, Standard, and Plus
  • Frontline Starter and Standard
  • Essentials, Enterprise Essentials, and Enterprise Essentials Plus
  • Nonprofits
Available for Google Workspace customers with these add-ons:

  • Gemini Business*
  • Gemini Enterprise*
  • Google AI Pro for Education
*As of January 15, 2025, we’re no longer offering the Gemini Business and Gemini Enterprise add-ons for sale. Please refer to this announcement for more details. 

Resources

Announcing Magika 1.0: now faster, smarter, and rebuilt in Rust

Announcing Magika 1.0: now faster, smarter, and rebuilt in Rust

Elie Bursztein, Julien Cretin, and Yanick Fratantonio, Applied Cybersecurity Research

Early last year, we open sourced Magika, Google's AI-powered file type detection system. Magika has seen great adoption by open source communities since that alpha release, with over one million monthly downloads. Today, we are happy to announce the release of Magika 1.0, a first stable version that introduces new features and a host of major improvements since last announcement. Here are the highlights:

  • Expanded file type support for more than 200 types (up from ~100).
  • A brand-new, high-performance engine rewritten from the ground up in Rust.
  • A native Rust command-line client for maximum speed and security.
  • Improved accuracy for challenging text-based formats like code and configuration files.
  • A revamped Magika Python and TypeScript module for even easier integrations.

Smarter Detection: Doubling Down on File Types

Magika 1.0 now identifies more than 200 content types, doubling the number of file-types supported from the initial release. This isn't just about a bigger number; it unlocks far more granular and useful identification, especially for specialized, modern file types.

Some of the notable new file types detected include:

  • Data Science & ML: We've added support for formats such as Jupyter Notebooks (ipynb), Numpy arrays (npy, npz), PyTorch models (pytorch), ONNX (onnx) files, Apache Parquet (parquet), and HDF5 (h5).
  • Modern Programming & Web: The model now recognizes dozens of languages and frameworks. Key additions include Swift (swift), Kotlin (kotlin), TypeScript (typescript), Dart (dart), Solidity (solidity), Web Assembly (wasm), and Zig (zig).
  • DevOps & Configuration: We've expanded detection for critical infrastructure and build files, such as Dockerfiles (dockerfile), TOML (toml), HashiCorp HCL (hcl), Bazel (bazel) build files, and YARA (yara) rules.
  • Databases & Graphics: We also added support for common formats like SQLite (sqlite) databases, AutoCAD (dwg, dxf) drawings, Adobe Photoshop (psd) files, and modern web fonts (woff, woff2).
  • Enhanced Granularity: Magika is now smarter at differentiating similar formats that might have been grouped together. For example, it can now distinguish:
    • JSONL (jsonl) vs. generic JSON (json)
    • TSV (tsv) vs. CSV (csv)
    • Apple binary plists (applebplist) from regular XML plists (appleplist)
    • C++ (cpp) vs. C (c)
    • JavaScript (javascript) vs. TypeScript(typescript)

Expanding Magika's detection capabilities introduced two significant technical hurdles: data volume and data scarcity.

First, the scale of the data required for training was a key consideration. Our training dataset grew to over 3TB when uncompressed, which required an efficient processing pipeline. To handle this, we leveraged our recently released SedPack dataset library. This tool allows us to stream and decompress this large dataset directly to memory during training, bypassing potential I/O bottlenecks and making the process feasible.

Second, while common file types are plentiful, many of the new, specialized, or legacy formats presented a data scarcity challenge. It is often not feasible to find thousands of real-world samples for every file type. To overcome this, we turned to generative AI. We leveraged Gemini to create a high-quality, synthetic training set by translating existing code and other structured files from one format to another. This technique, combined with advanced data augmentation, allowed us to build a robust training set, ensuring Magika performs reliably even on file types for which public samples are not readily available.

The complete list of all 200+ supported file types is available in our revamped documentation.

Under the Hood: A High-Performance Rust Engine

We completely rewrote Magika's core in Rust to provide native, fast, and memory-safe content identification. This engine is at the heart of the new Magika native command line tool that can safely scan hundreds of files per second.

Output of the new Magika Rust based command line tool

Magika is able to identify hundreds of files per second on a single core and easily scale to thousands per second on modern multi-core CPUs thanks to the use of the high-performance ONNX Runtime for model inference and Tokio for asynchronous parallel processing, For example, as visible in the chart below, on a MacBook Pro (M4), Magika processes nearly 1,000 files per second.

Getting Started

Ready to try it out? Getting started with the native command-line client is as simple as typing a single command line:

  • On Linux and MacOS: curl -LsSf https://securityresearch.google/magika/install.sh | sh
  • On Windows (PowerShell): powershell -ExecutionPolicy ByPass -c "irm https://securityresearch.google/magika/install.ps1 | iex"

Alternatively, the new Rust command-line client is also included in the magika python package, which you can install with: pipx install magika.

For developers looking to integrate Magika as a library into their own applications in Python, JavaScript/TypeScript, Rust, or other languages, head over to our comprehensive developer documentation to get started.

What's next

We're incredibly excited to see what you will build using Magika's enhanced file detection capabilities.

We invite you to join the community:

  • Try Magika: Install it and run it on your files, or try it out in our web demo.
  • Integrate Magika into your software: Visit our documentation to get started.
  • Give us a star on GitHub to show your support.
  • Report issues or suggest new file types you'd like to see by opening a feature request.
  • Contribute new features and bindings by opening a pull request.

Thank you to everyone who has contributed, provided feedback, and used Magika over the past year. We can't wait to see what the future holds.

Acknowledgements

Magika's continued success was made possible by the help and support of many people, including: Ange Albertini, Loua Farah, Francois Galilee, Giancarlo Metitieri, Alex Petit-Bianco, Kurt Thomas, Luca Invernizzi, Lenin Simicich, and Amanda Walker.

Chrome Beta for Desktop Update

The Beta channel has been updated to 143.0.7499.17 for Windows, Mac and Linux.

A partial list of changes is available in the Git log. Interested in switching release channels? Find out how. If you find a new issue, please let us know by filing a bug. The community help forum is also a great place to reach out for help or learn about common issues.

Chrome Release Team
Google Chrome