Google unveils responsible tech

CEO: New optional controls for Android operating system coming.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIF. — Google’s annual developer conference is normally a relentlessly positive cheerleading session to excite developers to create products for the company and its Android operating system. But this year, there was a hint of a more serious tone as the company discussed creating technology that is not simply innovative, but responsible.

The theme of the company’s annual conference was “Make Good Things Together.” Google chief executive Sundar Pichai said in a keynote address to about 7,000 developers and journalists that Google wants to push ahead to innovate, but he acknowledged that the tech giant can’t be “wideeyed” about it.

“There are important questions being raised about the impact of these advances and the role they’ll play in our lives,” he said. “We know the path ahead needs to be navigated carefully and deliberately.”

Google makes its money from collecting data for advertising, a model that’s come under closer scrutiny in light of the Facebook scandal over the data firm Cambridge Analytica, which was able to collect private information from tens of millions of Facebook users.

While Google has escaped the worst of the criticism leveled at Facebook, lawmakers have raised questions about how its YouTube video site, news aggregation and data algorithms overstep privacy concerns and shape public opinion.

Pichai did not directly address those concerns but returned repeatedly to the theme of responsible design throughout the show. That included new controls for Google’s Android operating system to limit how much children and adults use their smartphones. These options will become available to billions of Android users over the next several months, Google said.

“We are working hard to give users back time,” Pichai said.

Called Digital Wellbeing, the controls will let people know how they are using their phones and will even give services such as YouTube the ability to prompt viewers to take an occasional break. People can set time limits for using specific apps, and a new “shush” feature will be able to silence notifications when the phone is turned screen down. Users can select certain people whose calls will always break through the silence mode.

The controls are part of Google’s new operating system, Android P, which is now available for Google Pixel owners in beta.