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Is Amp’d Mobile gearing up for a change of the guard? Valleywag prints a rumor that the CEO and founder of the high-spending youth-oriented MVNO, Peter Adderton, has left the company. We heard this rumor a few weeks ago and asked Amp’d’s PR team directly if Adderton had left the company. At that time (May 8th) Amp’d spokespersons said the rumor was not true.

When I asked Amp’d’s PR team for an interview with Adderton then, an Amp’d spokesperson said: “That sounds great. Let me work on his sched and get back to you with a time.” Well, I haven’t heard back on that meeting yet, so we’ll see what happens, and the PR team didn’t respond to calls today. We’ll update the story when the PR team either gives a new statement, or confirms their former statement. Adderton is still listed on the website as CEO.

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Another ‘white space’ mobile prototype device has landed at the FCC for testing, this time from Philips which submitted a “spectrum sensing device” to the FCC last Friday. Ars Technica points out the details, and we checked out the FCC filing for the device that is similar to the one submitted by Microsoft in March.

White space is a popularly used term to describe idle wireless spectrum currently used by television broadcasters. Many view it as another broadband option in the U.S., where new entrants could potentially offer high-speed services with attractive attributes (like the ability to easily penetrate building walls).

While manufacturing companies are starting to submit these prototypes to the FCC, consumers shouldn’t get too excited about them just yet. These devices are just very basic prototypes. Furthermore, they face opposition from broadcasters, who don’t even want to mess with the potential for interference from the devices.

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We’ve been complaining to Skyhook Wireless CEO Ted Morgan about the company’s lack of Mac and mobile compatibility for its Loki location-based browser download for awhile. Well, we’ll stop bitching now.

The Boston-based Wi-Fi location startup plans to offer a Mac version, as well as a version for Windows Mobile mobile phones, by next week. The startup, which raised over $8 million from Bain Capital Ventures and Intel Capital among others, is planning to launch the new versions for the location-themed Where 2.0 conference next Tuesday.

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Updated: There’s 3 WiMAX options, Sprint, Clearwire and the rest of us, says Craig Niemeyer, CEO of Nth Air, a San Jose-based service provider he started in May 2005 with no VC funding. He says his company has just launched a trial mobile WiMAX service in Silicon Valley recently. Covad, Towerstream and a bunch of other smaller players also belong in the “rest of us” category.

Nth Air’s trial is tiny, compared with nationwide networks being planned by Clearwire and Sprint. “A couple nodes” says Niemeyer, though the company is also working on additional trials. But the service represents a growing interest in mobile WiMAX as the technology is nearing prime time, with vendors creating hardware. Sprint and Clearwire may not have blanketed the country with their networks just yet, but they have brought added interest to the market.

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Online ads created the dotcom bubble and bust in the late-nineties, and much later started to match those original revenue predictions. Will mobile ads follow the same path? Companies that dominate the ad, media and Internet worlds are placing their chips like Microsoft’s acquisition of ScreenTonic and AOL’s purchase of Third Screen Media. But how big will this market be - it depends on who you listen to.

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We’d be hard pressed to ever admit that we would actually miss any telecom moniker, but still. . . . AT&T’s announcement this morning that it’s starting the final phase of its rebranding efforts from Cingular to AT&T, does make us pause. The Cingular brand, which Om says it cost nearly $4 billion to build-up, just fell into the dustbin of the rare well-known and now retired brand names.

While everyone has been waiting for them to make the change over, not everyone agrees it’s a good move. Analysts say that AT&T was disappointed with last quarter’s postpaid subscribers adds and partially attributes that to the re-branding efforts of its mobile service. That’s why the company is using the iPhone to put the seal on the branding play.

But a lot of folks also think Cingular would be a better branding umbrella than the staid phone company-conveying AT&T. Including our readers — 54% of them say Cingular is a better choice, while only 28% like AT&T better.

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The single most important issue of our time - global warming - is being empowered by the greatest communication revolution of our day. In other words, the fight against climate change will be waged by the new tools of the web — social networks, collaboration software and community sites.

O.K., so maybe I just made two really broad arguable statements, but I’ve spent quite a few hours at the Climate Summit in New York this week. And when Microsoft and The Clinton Foundation speak up, you tend to listen.

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Does Qualcomm have a sick business idea on its hands? We’re not sure yet, but check this out.

Wireless Week has a story about Qualcomm and ‘unnamed partners’ building a health-based MVNO called LifeComm that is expected to launch in the second half of 2008. The wireless service will focus on health care — with some of the partners including medical device manufacturers — as well as a brand focused on consumer fitness, and healthy living.

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