Hawking is presenting his paper at the International Conference on General Relativity on 21st July, but no one really knows exactly what he's going to say. I expect that there'll be some quite complicated mathematics attached to his theory. It's a big risk on the part of the conference organisers to include the paper, without looking at it first, even when you consider its source.
If Hawking is correct then he will lose a bet that he made with the theoretical physicist, Kip Thorne, who originally argued that information can escape from a black hole. The loser of the bet has to present the winner with an encyclopedia - something from which information can be retrieved from at any time.
I've heard of Hawking making these wagers before and I think that he must do it to motivate himself. I recall reading in one of his books that there was one man who he refused to make bets with in case he was a time traveller and already knew the answers.
