diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 1058cef..72c99ff 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -7,7 +7,7 @@ and this project adheres to [Semantic Versioning](https://semver.org/spec/v2.0.0
 
 ## [UNRELEASED]
 
-
+* Fixed a bug with receiving binary data on the frontend, which gets [quak](https://github.com/manzt/quak) and [mosaic-widget](https://idl.uw.edu/mosaic/jupyter/) working with `@render_widget`. (#152)
 
 ## [0.3.2] - 2024-04-16
 
diff --git a/js/src/comm.ts b/js/src/comm.ts
index 948b773..3c1c7b0 100644
--- a/js/src/comm.ts
+++ b/js/src/comm.ts
@@ -32,6 +32,7 @@ export class ShinyComm {
     const msg = {
       content: {comm_id: this.comm_id, data: data},
       metadata: metadata,
+      // TODO: need to _encode_ any buffers into base64 (JSON.stringify just drops them)
       buffers: buffers || [],
       // this doesn't seem relevant to the widget?
       header: {}
diff --git a/js/src/utils.ts b/js/src/utils.ts
index b69d55f..e02ebaf 100644
--- a/js/src/utils.ts
+++ b/js/src/utils.ts
@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@ import { decode } from 'base64-arraybuffer';
 // along to the comm logic
 function jsonParse(x: string) {
   const msg = JSON.parse(x);
-  msg.buffers = msg.buffers.map((b: any) => decode(b));
+  msg.buffers = msg.buffers.map((base64: string) => new DataView(decode(base64)));
   return msg;
 }