The B factories have generated a large amount of new results on the \tau lepton. The present status of some selected topics on \tau physics is presented: charged-current universality tests, bounds on lepton-flavour violation, the determination of \alpha _s from the inclusive \tau hadronic width, and the measurement of |V_us| through the Cabibbo-suppressed decays of the \tau lepton.

PACS numbers: 14.60.Fg, 13.35.--r, 12.15.--y, 12.38.--t