Boffins building a new light-bending material which could be used as a cloaking device say they have discovered that it makes mobile communications clearer.

David Smith of Duke University in North Carolina, who worked on the study published in the journal Science the cloaking technology could be used to make obstacles that impede communications signals 'disappear.'".

The material, called metamaterial, which is an engineered, exotic substance with properties not seen in nature.  It bends electromagnetic waves such as light around an object, making it appear invisible.

According to a team, which included Ruopeng Liu of Duke University and T.J. Cui of Southeast University in Nanjing, China, microwaves aimed at the new cloaking material at a bump on a flat mirror surface. That prevented the microwave beams from being scattered and made the surface appear flat.

Unfortunately none of the hacks covering this story could mention it without a reference to Harry Potter. We would have thought the movie "Predator" would be a better reference.