Lost amidst the hubbub of yesterday's rather lackluster launch of the iPhone 4S, and (at least from a mobile payment standpoint) its glaring omission of NFC capabilities, was the posting of this short video by Samsung on YouTube.

The video is teasing Samsung's Unpacked Conference next week in San Diego, Calif. Samsung is, of course, the maker of the Google Nexus S smartphone, the first device to support the Google Wallet. The company is planning on releasing its next generation smartphone, the Nexus Prime, at the event, and the image on the video around the :22 mark looks a lot like the profile of a smartphone.

What makes the Nexus Prime intriguing from a mobile payment perspective is that sources familiar with the phone say it will come loaded with some impressive bells and whistles, including full support for NFC technologies and the Google Wallet. And if the sources are correct, the new phone will initially be available on the Verizon network to Verizon's 100 million customers.

That means one more carrier pushing a mobile payment-ready smartphone in the U.S. That's a big deal if, as an article on PaymentSource says, the biggest hurdle for mobile payment adoption is the lack of smartphones in the U.S.

UPDATED: For the seriously tech-minded, phone-loving types who like knowing these things, Boy Genius Report has the full specs on the Nexus Prime. They're very impressive:

• Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich
• 9mm thin
• 4.65-inch 1280 x 720-pixel Super AMOLED HD with curved glass
• TI OMAP 4460 dual-core Cortex A9 processor clocked at 1.2GHz
• 1GB of RAM
• 32GB of built-in storage
• 5-megapixel camera on the back, 1.3-megapixel in the front
• 1080p HD video capture support
• LTE/HSPA depending on carrier
• Wi-Fi a/b/g/n
• NFC
• 1,750 mAh battery

UPDATED 10/7: It looks like the Nexus Prime will have to wait for its debut. Google and Samsung have announced the unveiling is on hold for now. No reason was given, but speculation is that the passing of Apple CEO and Founder Steve Jobs this week would cast a pall over the introduction. 

The companies said a new date would be scheduled soon. Until then, a leaked video, supposedly of the Nexus Prime has surfaced and will have to do:

For more stories like this, please visit our Contactless/NFC research center. For a blog post on the impact of the new iPhone, and the Nexus Prime, on mobile payments, read "iPhone on Sprint will make Google Wallet accelerate, even without NFC."