Interview [Interview David Wood]

DESPITE BEING a main player in the development of software architecture for the smartphone, David Wood prefers to describe himself as the chair of the London Futurists, a meet-up group dedicated to seriously discussing a range of ???desirable outcomes??? for society. The world of engineering and technology might know him better for the part he played in the development of mobile computing; Wood???s concerns are not with the past, but the future. But sometimes the future starts with a little history. Wood worked on the personal digital assistant (PDA) at Psion, which was Europe???s leading manufacturer of handheld computers for several years, and coined the term ???organiser???. Realising the technology that went into making the PDA possible was also suited to a category of technology that could be ???dimly glimpsed???, Wood moved on to Symbian, where his ???role was in envisaging future smart technology. I was a software architect for many parts of the resulting software system, which became known as Symbian OS???.