Google released a new telephone today - or rather, it announced a Google-branded version of an already-released Samsung Galaxy S smartphone. The advantage of Google's version, the Nexus S, being that it comes free of all the extra crap pre-loaded on to app-happy telephones these days. So, if you've already given your digital life over to the Google's many colorful applications then Techcrunch says setup will be a breeze and calls it "better than an iPhone in most ways," but unlikely to cause any fans to switch.

One notable inclusion to the Google phone's hardware is a Near Field Communications chip, which allows the phone to replace your credit card thus thinning your wallet and probably fattening your debt. More importantly, the NFC chip is basically a smarter version of the same technology that stores you Clipper Card balance, so you could theoretically be tapping your smartphone to Muni and BART fare readers in the near future. (As if our touchy-feely phones didn't have enough germs already.) The Chronicle points out that Apple is looking to get in on the same game with the next version of the iPhone, but the flip-phone purists out there could always hack something together with a Clipper card, some Krazy Glue and an old Razr.

[TechCrunch]
[Chronicle]