Last decade's advances and modern aspects of near infrared spectroscopy are critically examined and reviewed. Innovative instrumentation, highlighted by portable and imaging instruments, chemometrics data multivariate processing, and new and valuable applications are presented and discussed. Because of these advances, this mature analytical technique is continually experiencing renewed interest. The drawbacks and misuses of the technique and its supporting mathematical tools are also addressed. The principal achievements in the field are shown in a critical manner, in order to understand why the technique has found intensive application in the most diverse and modern areas of analytical importance during the last ten years. Display omitted •State of the art of near infrared technology.•Critical review of modern near infrared spectroscopy.•The three sustaining pillars of near infrared spectroscopy.