The old friend being refered to is Bill, you end up meeting him on one of the two islands and an assistant on the other island. The purpose for the islands are still unknown. For anyone wondering about the main characters, let me clear things up by saying it is NOT Satoshi/Ash or Shigeru/Gary. Everyone's mistaken the two with the videogame counterparts, Red and Green. In Fire Red/Leaf Green, you choose to either be Red (Male) or Blue (Female), and your rival will always be Green. Quite alot will be added into the game, such as battling with Ruby/Saphire copies against FR/LG copies. With that, the Special stats will most likely be split into Special Attack and Special Defense, along with updating the old moves (such as Amnesia now boosting up Spec. Defense instead of Spec. Attack). It may be a possibility that Pokémon such as Cleffa, Igglybuff, Pichu, Crobat, Blissey and so forth may be obtainable in FR/LG due to this update and due to Happiness Evolution and Egg Raising.
Even though this game is being widely announced and advertised on the net, Nintendo of America has yet to even state a word about the game, possibly due to the Motorola Wireless Adapter being included with the game (which is being given a limited release in Japan, about 500k being released). If they were to state a release date, it'd most likely come around Summer time and (like the Crystal version) may have some features removed in the US.