Found in one of the Chrome sample applications, although this is meant for larger blocks of data where you're okay with an asynchronous conversion.
/**
* Converts an array buffer to a string
*
* @private
* @param {ArrayBuffer} buf The buffer to convert
* @param {Function} callback The function to call when conversion is complete
*/
function _arrayBufferToString(buf, callback) {
var bb = new Blob([new Uint8Array(buf)]);
var f = new FileReader();
f.onload = function(e) {
callback(e.target.result);
};
f.readAsText(bb);
}