Stay connected with mesh extenders

At GFiber, we are committed to providing you with a great internet experience at every point in the network, both outside and inside your home. You should have access to quality internet anywhere in your home, not just in certain areas. Having a strong Wi-Fi signal throughout your home is important for seamless browsing, streaming, gaming, and working. If you’ve ever dealt with dead zones or slow speeds, you know the struggle. Mesh extenders can be a game changer by boosting your signal and expanding your coverage. Let's dive into what they are, how they work, and why you might need one. (For GFiber customers, our plans come with GFiber Wi-Fi 6E Mesh Extenders included at no extra cost.) 

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How Mesh Extenders work

Mesh extenders strengthen your home network by capturing the Wi-Fi signal from your router and sharing it in hard-to-reach spots. They create additional access points in your home, expanding your network’s reach. This is especially helpful when your router’s signal can’t cover every room or area, which can happen for many reasons, like if you have thicker walls, several floors or the home is more spread out.

Setting up your mesh extenders

A mesh extender can be added to your network in just a few simple steps 

  • Connect the mesh extender’s adapter to a power source.
  • Connect the mesh extender to the router using the ethernet cables. 
  • Wait for the blinking white status light to turn green on the mesh extender. (The green status color means the mesh extender is now paired to your router). 
The GFiber App can also help you pair the router and mesh extender, easily find the best spot for your mesh extenders and also check your mesh extender’s internet connectivity, speed, and coverage with the app’s Network Health feature. If eligible (not all routers are compatible) to use Network Health, you can tap on “Show my network’s health” and it will run a test and score the spot either excellent, good, or poor. If the signal isn’t quite as strong as you’d like it to be, you can adjust the extender’s position for optimal coverage.

Placement matters
















Once the mesh extender is connected to the network, you need to find the perfect spot for your mesh extender, which is key to a strong Wi-Fi signal. The sweet spot is usually halfway between your router and the area with poor Wi-Fi coverage. 

Start by placing the first mesh extender no more than one or two rooms away from the router and close to the area with weak coverage, ideally 5-10 feet high and away from obstructions like walls and furniture. Pro Tip: Placing the extender in the dead zone won’t work, since the mesh extender needs a strong signal from the Router to be effective. 

If you have a large home with multiple dead spots, you can add additional mesh extenders. Remember, thick walls and materials like concrete and metal can interfere with the signal, so place your mesh extenders carefully. 

Some additional things to consider 

Each extender adds to the network’s workload. While mesh extenders are generally better than traditional repeaters, too many Mesh Extenders close to each other can actually slow your Wi-Fi down and lead to lag, interference, and other annoying issues. Plus, managing a large number of extenders can be a headache if you need to troubleshoot issues or tweak your network settings.

Also, you’ll need to make sure your mesh extenders are compatible with your router. For GFiber customers using the GFiber provided router, the included mesh extenders will work with your system, but you can also use your own compatible multi-gig router. Just make sure you get mesh extenders that are compatible with your particular router.

Mesh extenders are a great way to expand your home’s Wi-Fi coverage and performance by eliminating dead zones and improving your online experience.  If you’d like more information or still have questions, head over to our GFiber Help page or contact us.

Posted by Ishan Patel, Product Manager




Picture-in-picture in Google Meet will now open automatically when switching tabs

What’s changing 

Have you ever lost your video screen after switching to another tab? Google Meet’s picture-in-picture feature helps to solve that problem, but now we’ve made it even easier. Picture-in-picture mode will now automatically trigger when you switch tabs during a meeting. Previously, you had to manually turn on this feature during a meeting. This simple, yet impactful update, will help ensure your meeting stays visible and accessible if you need to switch tabs to take notes, view meeting related documents, and more. Note that picture-in-picture is only available with Google Chrome on a computer.
Picture-in-picture in Google Meet will now open automatically when switching tabs

Getting started 

  • Admins: There is no admin control for this feature. 
  • End users: You can turn this feature off from your Google Chrome settings. Visit the Help Center to learn more about using picture-in-picture with Google Meet.
You can turn this feature on and off by selecting the “View site information” icon in the Chrome URL bar and turning “Automatic picture-in-picture” off.
You can turn this feature on and off by selecting the “View site information” icon in the Chrome URL bar and turning “Automatic picture-in-picture” off.


Rollout pace 


Availability

  • Available to all Google Workspace customers, Workspace Individual Subscribers, and users with personal Google accounts 

Resources

Automate your workflows on Google Chat with IFTTT and UKG Flow integrations

What’s changing 

Following the announcement at Google Cloud Next 2024, we’re excited to introduce Google Chat integrations with IFTTT and UKG Flow. 

The IFTTT integration enables users to automate Chat with 1,000+ of today's most popular apps. For example, Chat users can now set up workflows, like sending an onboarding email to a customer that’s added as a new member to a space, or sending a message to a space when a new file is added to a Google Drive, Dropbox, or Box folder. Using the integration, Chat users can also stay up-to-date on all of their communities by having new Discord, X, and Facebook mentions or tags automatically posted to a space. 
IFTTT integration
Using the UKG Flow app, users and employees can perform common UKG actions, such as those included in the Timekeeping & Scheduling functionalities of UKG Pro WFM. 
UKG Flow app

With these integrations, users can accomplish more in their workday by completing common tasks using daily productivity apps, without ever leaving Chat. 

Getting started 

  • Admins: UKG Flow requires admins to install the app on their users’ behalf. Visit the Help Center to learn more about installing Marketplace apps for your organization. 
  • End users: 
    • Get started with the IFTTT’s Chat integration here. 
    • Once UKG Flow is installed by your admin, you can use it freely in Google Chat. 

Rollout pace 

  • These integrations are available now. 

Availability 

  • Available to all Google Workspace customers, Workspace Individual Subscribers, and users with personal Google accounts

Resources

Google Workspace Updates Weekly Recap – August 23, 2024

1 New update

Unless otherwise indicated, the features below are available to all Google Workspace customers, and are fully launched or in the process of rolling out. Rollouts should take no more than 15 business days to complete if launching to both Rapid and Scheduled Release at the same time. If not, each stage of rollout should take no more than 15 business days to complete.


Send emails about your files to collaborators using the sharing dialog in Workspace apps
Once a file is shared, you have the option to “notify” someone when they’ve been added to view, comment on, or edit a file. We’re building upon this by introducing the ability to send an email to any collaborator if you are a file owner or editor. This is especially useful if you’ve recently made updates to the content or if you’d like to pose a question to the group. To email collaborators, click “Share” > click on the “Email people on this file” icon next to “People with access” > select the email recipients and add a custom message. | Rolling out to Rapid Release domains now; launch to Scheduled Release domains planned for August 26, 2024. | Available to Google Workspace customers, Google Workspace Individual subscribers, and users with personal Google accounts. | Visit the Help Center to learn more about sharing files from Google Drive.

Send emails about your files to collaborators using the sharing dialog in Workspace apps

Previous announcements

The announcements below were published on the Workspace Updates blog earlier this week. Please refer to the original blog posts for complete details.


Expanding multi-party-approvals to domain-wide-delegation actions 
We’re expanding multi-party approvals to include domain-wide-delegation. Domain-wide-delegation is a powerful feature which allows admins to grant third-party applications permission to access your Workspace users’ data. | Learn more about domain-wide-delegation actions. 

Introducing Student Groups in Google Classroom 
There is a new feature in Google Classroom that enables teachers to create groups of students to make assigning differentiated content easier. | Learn more about student groups in Classroom. 

Refine emails faster with updates to Help me write in Gmail 
We’ve introduced two new Gemini in Gmail updates to help you draft emails even faster: 1) a new option for Help me write that polishes emails drafts on web and mobile devices and 2) Help me write and Refine my draft shortcuts on Android and iOS devices. | Learn more about Help me write in Gmail. 

Google Meet increases ultra-low latency live streaming support to 100,000 viewers in distributed audiences 
For select Google Workspace editions*, we’re pleased to announce that the Google Meet ultra-low latency viewing experience for live streamed meetings will now support up to 100,000 viewers. In addition, the Google Meet ultra-low latency viewing experience for live streamed meetings is now available also from Google Meet room hardware. | Learn more about Meet ultra-low latency live streaming. 

Third-party smart chip resource creation now available in Google Docs 
We’re enabling third-party partners, such as Lucidspark, Lucidchart, and Zoho Projects, to create smart chips or resources like tasks or flowcharts that end users can add and edit in their Google Docs. | Learn more about third-party smart chips in Docs.

New host controls for add-ons in Google Meet
We’re giving meeting hosts and co-hosts the ability to control the use of add-ons during meetings* with a new setting. | Learn more about host controls in Meet.


Completed rollouts

The features below completed their rollouts to Rapid Release domains, Scheduled Release domains, or both. Please refer to the original blog posts for additional details.



Rapid Release Domains: 
Scheduled Release Domains: 
Rapid and Scheduled Release Domains: 

Paused rollouts

We have paused the rollout for this feature while we evaluate performance and quality. We will provide an update with new rollout information as soon as possible. 

For a recap of announcements in the past six months, check out What’s new in Google Workspace (recent releases).  



Chrome Dev for Desktop Update

The Dev channel has been updated to 130.0.6669.2 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.

Daniel Yip
Google Chrome

Adding 16 KB Page Size to Android

Posted by Steven Moreland – Staff Software Engineer, Sandeep Patil – Principal Software Engineer

A page is the granularity at which an operating system manages memory. Most CPUs today support a 4 KB page size and so the Android OS and applications have historically been built and optimized to run with a 4 KB page size. ARM CPUs support the larger 16 KB page size. When Android uses this larger page size, we observe an overall performance boost of 5-10% while using ~9% additional memory.

In order to improve the operating system performance overall and to give device manufacturers an option to make this trade-off, Android 15 can run with 4 KB or 16 KB page sizes.

The very first 16 KB enabled Android system will be made available on select devices as a developer option. This is so you can use the developer option to test and fix (if needed) your applications to prepare for Android devices with 16 KB page sizes in the near future.

Details

In most CPUs, dedicated hardware called memory management units (MMUs) translate addresses from what a program is using to a physical location in memory. This translation is done on a page-size basis. Every time a program needs more memory, the operating system needs to get involved and fill out a “page table” entry, assigning that piece of memory to a process. When the page size is 4 times larger, there is 4 times less bookkeeping. So, the system can spend more time making sure your videos look great, games play well, and applications run smoothly, and less time filling out low-level operating system paperwork.

Unlike 32-bit/64-bit mode, a page size is not an Application Binary Interface (ABI). In other words, once an application is fixed to be page size agnostic, the same application binary can run on both 4 KB and 16 KB devices.

In Android 15, we’ve refactored Android from the ground up to support running at different page sizes, thus making it page-size agnostic.

Major OS Changes

On new Android 15 based devices:

    • All OS binaries are 16 KB aligned (-Wl,-z,max-page-size=16384). 3rd party applications / libraries may not be 16 KB aligned.
    • All OS binaries are built with separate loadable segments (-Wl,-z,separate-loadable-segments) to ensure all memory regions mapped into a process are readable, which some applications depend on.

Many of our other OS components have been rewritten to avoid assuming the page size and to optimize for larger page size when available.

Filesystems

For performant operation, file system block size must match the page size. EROFS and F2FS file systems have been made 16 KB compatible, as has the UFS storage layer.

On 4 KB systems, ELF executable file size increases due to additional padding added for 16 KB alignment (-Wl,-z,max-page-size=16384 option), but several optimizations help us avoid this cost.

  1. Sparse read-only file systems ensure that zero pages created for additional padding for 16 KB alignment are not written to disk. For example, EROFS knows a certain range of a file is zero filled, and it will not need to do any IO if this part of the file is accessed.
  2. Read-writeable file systems handle zero pages on a case-by-case basis. For example, In Android 15, for files installed as part of applications PackageManager reclaims this space.

Memory Management

  1. The Linux page cache has been modified not to read ahead for these extra padding spaces, thereby saving unnecessary memory load.
  2. These pages are blank padding, and programs never read this. It’s the space in-between usable parts of the program, purely for alignment reasons.

Linux Kernel

The Linux kernel is deeply tied to a specific page size, so we must choose which page size to use when building the kernel, while the rest of the operating system remains the same.

Android Applications

All applications with native code or dependencies need to be recompiled for compatibility with 16 KB page size devices.

Since most native code within Android applications and SDKs have been built with 4 KB page size in mind, they need to be re-aligned to 16 KB so the binaries are compatible with both 4 KB and 16 KB devices. For most applications and SDKs, this is a 2 step process:

  1. Rebuild the native code with 16 KB alignment.
  2. Test and fix on a 16 KB device/emulator in case there are hardcode assumptions about page size.

Please see our developer documentation for more information.

NOTE: If you are an SDK or tools developer, you should add 16 KB support as soon as possible so that applications can work on 16 KB using your SDK or tools.

Developing for 16 KB devices

There are no production Android devices available today or expected for the Android 15 release that support a 16 KB page size. In order to fix this problem, we are taking steps to work with our partners to make a developer option available on existing devices. This developer option is meant for application development and testing. We are also making a 16 KB emulator target available for developers in Android Studio.

16 KB Developer option on device

In Android 15, we implemented a developer option that lets users switch between 16 KB and 4 KB page size on the device in order to test their application with either of the page sizes. This option is available on Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro starting in the Android 15 QPR1 Beta, and we're collaborating closely with SoC and OEM partners to enable the option on additional devices soon.

screen grab of 16KB developer option on device

When built for 16 KB pages, the same binary will work with 4 KB and 16 KB devices, however the Linux kernel has to be separate. In order to solve this problem, we’ve added a way to include an extra kernel you can switch to as a developer option. Incrementally compressed, with one copy for each page size and takes ~12-16 MB of space on disk.

Using the 16 KB developer option will require wiping the device once and an unlocked bootloader. Following flashing, developers will be able to switch between a 4 KB and 16 KB mode by toggling the developer option over a reboot.

If you are a device manufacturer or SoC developer, see our instructions on how to enable and use this.

16 KB on x86_64 desktops

While 16 KB pages are an ARM-only feature, we recognize that many developers are using emulators on x86_64 hardware. In order to bridge this gap for developers, we’ve added support to emulate 16 KB page size for applications on x86_64 emulators. In this mode, the Kernel runs in 4 KB mode, but all addresses exposed to applications are aligned to 16 KB, and arguments to function calls such as mmap(...MAP_FIXED...) are verified to be 16 KB aligned.

To get started, you can download and run the 16 KB pages emulator inside the Android Studio SDK manager. This way, even if you don’t have access to ARM hardware, you can still ensure your applications will work with 16 KB page size.

16 KB pages emulator inside the Android Studio SDK manager

Future

In this post, we’ve discussed the technical details of how we are restructuring memory in Android to get faster, more performant devices. Android 15 and AOSP work with 16 KB pages, and devices can now implement 16 KB pages as a development option. This required changes from the bottom to the top of the operating system, in our development tooling, and throughout the Android ecosystem.

We are looking forward to application and SDK developers now to take advantage of these options and prepare for more performant and efficient Android devices in near future.

New host controls for add-ons in Google Meet

What’s changing 

We’re giving meeting hosts and co-hosts the ability to control the use of add-ons during meetings* with a new setting. We hope this new setting helps keep meetings on task and productive by allowing hosts to control access to add-ons as they deem appropriate. Note that this setting does not impact single participant add-on experiences. 

The setting will be ON by default, which means all meeting participants can start an add-on activity.

To configure this setting, from the bottom right of your screen select Host Controls (lock icon) > Meeting Activities > Let contributors share add-on activities




When the setting is turned OFF, only the hosts can start an add-ons and ask meeting participants to join the add-on activity. If other participants try starting a collaboration with an add-on, they will get an error. 



*Soon you’ll be able to configure this setting from the Calendar event — we’ll share more information here on the Workspace Updates blog when that becomes available.


Getting started

  • Admins: There is no admin impact or action required.
  • End users: 
    • This feature will be ON by default. It can only be configured from laptop and desktop devices, however it will apply to all meeting participants, including those using mobile devices. 
    • Your setting configuration will apply to all future instances of recurring meetings.
    • Visit the Help Center to learn more about using add-ons with Google Meet. 

Rollout pace

Availability

  • Available for all Google Workspace customers

Resources


Beta Channel Update for ChromeOS / ChromeOS Flex

Hello All,

The Beta channel has been updated to 128.0.6613.75 (Platform version: 15964.32.0) for most ChromeOS devices.

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

Interested in switching channels? Find out how.


Google ChromeOS.