Semileptonic decays of the B mesons provide an excellent probe for the weak
and strong interactions of the bottom quark. The large data samples collected
at the B Factories have pushed the experimental studies of the semileptonic B
decays to a new height and stimulated significant theoretical developments. I
review recent progresses in this fast-evolving field, with an emphasis on the
determination of the magnitude of the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix element
|Vub|.Comment: 16 pages, 4 figures, accepted by Mod. Phys. Lett.