Yet another disappointment - these beacons will (of course) be closed off to Apple devices only. I don't think we'll see another widely-used standard like GPS for a long time.
The two companies linked in the article: http://buyibeacons.com/ says they have both iOS and Android SDKs, http://estimote.com/ says that any Bluetooth 4.0 device can support their beacons.
Android already does something similar using wifi signals.