Marissa Mayer was commenting during LeWeb '11 that mobile access of Google Maps had "crossed over" desktop use for good in July 2011.
With the particular interest for car applications that Google has shown, we can foresee a stream of new map related application coming in.
Today Google announced the launch of a new Google Crisis Response project: Google Public Alerts, a platform designed to bring you relevant emergency alerts when and where you’re searching for them.
Apparently a Google Crisis Response team has been put in place to provide critical emergency information during crises. The goal is to surface emergency information through Google Maps I guess, a tool they describe as "online tools you use everyday", when that information is relevant and useful..." here is the Google blog post