Well, the hubble telescope seems to have found pretty good confirmation that black holes do exist, as reported a couple of years ago here: http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/new...eases/2002/18/.

Hawking did "overlook", or more accurately conflict with subatomic laws in the sense that his views on how black holes work (proposed about 20 years ago) do contradict quantum physics.

However, he has now changed his mind when he stated last week that
"If you jump into a black hole, your mass energy will be returned to our Universe, but in a mangled form, which contains information about what you were like, but in an unrecognisable state." - which conforms with what quantum theory would say.

Previously he was saying that matter could be destroyed/fundamentally altered, which is what lead to the idea of alternative universes, as once it fell behind the event horizon, it was lost forever.
What he is saying now is that all black holes "open up" at some time in the future, and emit the original information in some form.

This is also in agreement with "string theory" – where the universe is made up of tiny, vibrating strings (rather than minuscule particles) which would also allow the information to escape from a black hole in the future.

Nothing yet on "naked singularities", which is another odd thing which comes out of Einstiens theories on relativity.

I'm looking forward to seeing the details of what maths he has used to do this, as I studied this as part of my maths degree at Oxford.