Spintronics exploits the influence of the electron spin orientation on the electronic transport. Although one knows mainly the "giant magnetoresistance" (GMR) of the magnetic multilayers and the large increase of the hard disc capacity obtained with read heads based on the GMR, the research on spintronics has also revealed many other interesting effects and is developing today along novel directions with promising prospects as well for short term applications as for the "beyond CMOS" perspective. After an introduction on the fundamentals of spintronics, I will review some of the most interesting emerging directions of today: spin transfer and its applications to STT-RAMs or to microwave generation, spintronics with semiconductors, graphene and carbon nanotubes, Spin Hall Effects, neuromorphic devices etc.